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RIENZI 

The Last: of the Roman Tribunes 


BY 


EDWARD, BULWER-LYTTON :^tte 

(lord lytton) 


“Then turn we to her latest Tribune’s name, 

From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee, 

Redeemer of dark centuries of shame. 

The friend of Petrarch, — hope of Italy, — 

Rienzi, last of Romans! While the tree 
Of Freedom’s withered trunk puts forth a leaf. 

Even for thy tomb a garland let it be ; 

The Forum’s champion, and the people’s chief, — 

Her new-born Numa thou! ” 

Childe Harold, canto iv., stanza 114. 

Amidst the indulgence of enthusiasm and elegance, Petrarch, 
Italy, and Europe were astonished by a revolution, which 
realized for a moment his most splendid visions. 

Gibbon, chap. Ixx. 


BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY 


PUBLISHERS 





Copyright, 1893, 

By Little, Brown, and Comrany. 

5 ^(m) 


University Press : 

John Wilson and Son, Ca3ibridge, U S. A. 



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PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1835, 


I BEGAN this tale two years ago at Rome. On remov- 
ing to Naples, I threw it aside for " The Last Days 
of Pompeii,” which required, more than “Rienzi,” 
the advantage of residence within reach of the scenes 
described. The fate of the Roman Tribune continued, 
however, to haunt and impress me, and, some time after 
" Pompeii ” was published, I renewed my earlier under- 
taking. I regarded the completion of these volumes, 
indeed, as a kind of duty; for having had occasion to 
read the original authorities from which modern his- 
torians have drawn their accounts of the life of Rienzi, 
I was led to believe that a very remarkable man had 
been superficially judged, and a very important period 
crudely examined.^ And this belief was sufficiently 
strong to induce me at first to meditate a more serious 
work upon the life and times of Rienzi.^ Various 
reasons concurred against this project; and I renounced 
the biography to commence the fiction. I have still, 
however, adhered, with a greater fidelity than is cus- 
tomary in romance, to all the leading events of the 

1 See Appendix, Nos. I. and II. 

2 I have adopted the termination of ** Kienzi instead of 
“Rienzo,” as being more familiar to the general reader; but 
the latter is perhaps the more accurate reading, since the name 
was a popular corruption from Lorenzo. 


VI 


PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1835. 


public life of the Roman Tribune ; and the reader will 
perhaps find in these pages a more full and detailed 
account of the rise and fall of Rienzi than in any 
English work of which I am aware. I have, it is true, 
taken a view of his character different in some respects 
from that of- Gibbon or Sismondi. But it is a view, in 
all its main features, which I believe (and think I could 
prove) myself to be warranted in taking, not less by the 
facts of history than the laws of fiction. In the mean 
while, as I have given the facts from which I have 
drawn my interpretation of the principal agent, the 
reader has sufficient data for his own judgment. In 
the picture of the Roman Populace, as in that of the 
Roman Nobles of the fourteenth century, I follow 
literally the descriptions left to us: they are not flat- 
tering, but they are faithful, likenesses. 

Preserving generally the real chronology of Rienzi ’s 
life, the plot of this work extends over a space of some 
years, and embraces the variety of characters necessary 
to a true delineation of events. The story, therefore, 
cannot have precisely that order of interest found in 
fictions strictly and genuinely dramatic^ in which (to 
my judgment at least) the time ought to be as limited 
as possible, and the characters as few; no new charac- 
ter of importance to the catastrophe being admissible 
towards the end of the work. If I may use the word 
“ epic ’’ in its most modest and unassuming acceptation, 
this fiction, in short, though indulging in dramatic 
situations, belongs, as a whole, rather to the epic than 
the dramatic school. 

I cannot conclude without rendering the tribute of 
my praise and homage to the versatile and gifted author 
of the beautiful Tragedy of Rienzi. Considering that 
our hero be the same, — considering that we had the 


PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1836. 


Vll 


same materials from which to choose our several stories, 
— I trust I shall he found to have little, if at all, tres- 
passed upon ground previously occupied. With ,the 
single exception of a love-intrigue between a relative 
of Rienzi and one of the antagonist party, which makes 
the plot of Miss Mitford’s Tragedy, and is little more 
than an episode in my Eomance, having slight effect on 
the conduct and none on the fate of the hero, I am not 
aware of any resemblance between the two works; and 
even this coincidence I could easily have removed, had 
I deemed it the least advisable : huk it would be almost 
discreditable if I had nothing that resembled a perform- 
ance possessing so much it were an honor to imitate. 

In fact, the prodigal materials of the story — the rich 
and exuberant complexities of Rienzi^s character, joined 
to the advantage possessed by the novelist of embracing 
all that the dramatist must reject ^ — are sufficient to 
prevent dramatist and novelist from interfering with 
each other. 

London, December 1 , 1835 . 

1 Thus the slender space permitted to the dramatist does not 
allow Miss Mitford to be very faithful to facts, — to distinguish 
between Rienzi’s earlier and his later period of power, or to detail 
the true but somewhat intricate causes of his rise, his splendor, and 
his fall. 


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PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1848. 


From the time of its first appearance, “ Kienzi ” has 
had the good fortune to rank high amongst my most 
popular works, — though its interest is rather drawn 
from a faithful narration of historical facts than from 
the inventions of fancy. And the success of this 
experiment confirms me in my belief that the true mode 
of employing history in the service of romance is to 
study diligently the materials as history; conform to 
such views of the facts as the author would adopt if 
he related them in the dry character of historian; and 
obtain that warmer interest which fiction bestows, by 
tracing the causes of the facts in the characters and 
emotions of the personages of the time. The events of 
his work are thus already shaped to his hand, the char- 
acters already created: what remains for him is the 
inner, not outer, history of man, — the chronicle of the 
human heart; and it is by this that he introduces a new 
harmony between character and event, and adds the 
completer solution of what is actual and true, by those 
speculations of what is natural and probable, which are 
out of the province of history, but belong especially to 
the philosophy of romance. And if it be permitted 
the tale-teller to come reverently for instruction in his 
art to the mightiest teacher of all, who, whether in the 
page or on the scene, would give to airy fancies the 

VOL. I. — b 


X 


PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1848. 


breath and the form of life, such, we may observe, is 
the lesson the humblest craftsman in historical romance 
may glean from the Historical Plays of Shakspeare. 
Necessarily, Shakspeare consulted history according to 
the imperfect lights, and from the popular authorities, 
of his age; and I do not say, therefore, that as an his- 
torian we can rely upon Shakspeare as correct. But to 
that in which he believed he rigidly adhered; nor did 
he seek, as lesser artists (such as Victor Hugo and his 
disciples) seek now to turn perforce the historical into 
the poetical, but, leaving history as he found it, to call 
forth from its arid prose the flower of the latent poem. 
Nay, even in the more imaginative plays which he has 
founded upon novels and legends popular in his time, 
it is curious and instructive to see how little he has 
altered the original groundwork, — taking for granted 
the main materials of the story, and reserving all his 
matchless resources of wisdom and invention to illus- 
trate from mental analysis the creations whose outline 
he was content to borrow. He receives, as a literal fact 
not to be altered, the somewhat incredible assertion of 
the novelist, that the pure and delicate and high-born 
Venetian loves the swarthy Moor, and that Borneo, 
fresh from his “ woes for Bosaline,” becomes suddenly 
enamored of Juliet: he found the Improbable, and 
employed his art to make it truthful. 

That “ Bienzi ” should have attracted peculiar atten- 
tion in Italy is of course to be attributed to the choice 
of the subject rather than to the skill of the author. It 
has been translated into the Italian language by eminent 
writers; and the authorities for the new view of Bienzi’s 
times and character which the author deemed himself 
warranted to take, have been compared with his text by 
careful critics and illustrious scholars, in those states 


PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1848. 


XI 


in which the work has been permitted to circulate.^ 
I may say, I trust without unworthy pride, that the 
result has confirmed the accuracy of delineations which 
English readers, relying only on the brilliant but dis- 
paraging account in Gibbon, deemed too favorable; and 
has tended to restore the great Tribune to his long- 
forgotten claims to the love and reverence of the Italian 
land. Nor, if I may trust to the assurances that have 
reached me from many now engaged in the aim of politi- 
cal regeneration, has the effect of that revival of the 
honors due to a national hero, leading to the ennobling 
study of great examples, been wholly without its influ- 
ence upon the rising generation of Italian youth, and 
thereby upon those stirring events which have recently 
drawn the eyes of Europe to the men and the lands 
beyond the Alps. 

In preparing for the press this edition of a work 
illustrative of the exertions of a Roman, in advance 
of his time, for the political freedom of his country, 
and of those struggles between contending principles 
of which Italy was the most stirring field in the Middle 
Ages, it is not out of place or season to add a few sober 
words, whether as a student of the Italian past or as an 
observer, with some experience of the social elements 
of Italy as it now exists, upon the state of affairs in that 
country. 

It is nothing new to see the Papal Church in the 
capacity of a popular reformer, and in contra-position 
to the despotic potentates of the several states, as well 
as to the German Emperor, who nominally inherits the 
sceptre of the Caesars. Such was its common character 
under its more illustrious pontiffs; and the old Repub- 
1 In the Papal States, I believe, it was neither prudently nor 
effectually proscribed. 


Xll 


PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1848. 


lies of Italy grew up under the shadow of the papal 
throne, harboring ever two factions, — the one for the 
Emperor, the other for the Pope, — the latter the more 
naturally allied to Italian independence. On the 
modern stage we almost see the repetition of many 
an ancient drama. But the past should teach us to 
doubt the continuous and steadfast progress of any 
single line of policy under a principality so constituted 
as that of the Papal Church, — a principality in which 
no race can be perpetuated, in which no objects can be 
permanent; in which the successor is chosen by a select 
ecclesiastical synod, under a variety of foreign as well 
as of national influences, in which the chief usually 
ascends the throne at an age that ill adapts his mind to 
the idea of human progress and the active direction of 
mundane afiairs, — a principality in which the peculiar 
sanctity that wraps the person of the Sovereign exoner- 
ates him from the healthful liabilities of a power purely 
temporal, and directly accountable to Man. A reform- 
ing pope is a lucky accident ; and dull indeed must be 
the brain which believes in the possibility of a long 
succession of reforming popes, or which can regard as 
other than precarious and unstable the discordant com- 
bination of a constitutional government with an infal- 
lible head. 

It is as true as it is trite that political freedom is not 
the growth of a day, — it is not a flower without a stalk, 
and it must gradually develop itself from amidst the 
unfolding leaves of kindred institutions. 

In one respect the Austrian domination, fairly con- 
sidered, has been beneficial to the states over which it 
has been directly exercised, and may be even said to 
have unconsciously schooled them to the capacity for 
freedom. In those states the personal rights which 


PEEFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1848. xiii 

depend on impartial and incorrupt administration of 
the law are infinitely more secure than in most of the 
courts of Italy. Bribery, which shamefully predomi- 
nates in the judicature of certain principalities, is as 
unknown in the juridical courts of Austrian Italy as in 
England. The Emperor himself is often involved in 
legal disputes with a subject, and justice is as free and 
as firm for the humblest suitor as if his antagonist were 
his equal. Austria, indeed, but holds together the 
motley and inharmonious menibers of its vast domain 
on either side the Alps by a general character of pater- 
nal mildness and forbearance in all that great circle of 
good government which lies without the one principle 
of constitutional liberty. It asks but of its subjects 
to submit to be well governed, without agitating the 
question “ how and by what means that government is 
carried on.” For every man, except the politician, the 
innovator, Austria is no harsh stepmother. But it is 
obviously clear that the better in other respects the 
administration of a state, it does but foster the more 
the desire for that political security which is only found 
in constitutional freedom: the reverence paid to per- 
sonal rights but begets the passion for political; and 
under a mild despotism are already half matured the 
germs of a popular constitution. But it is still a grave 
question whether Italy is ripe for self-government, and 
whether, were it possible that the Austrian domina- 
tion could be shaken off, the very passion so excited, 
the very bloodshed so poured forth, would not ultimately 
place the larger portion of Italy under auspices less 
favorable to the sure growth of freedom than those which 
silently brighten under the sway of the German Csesar. 

The two kingdoms, at the opposite extremes of Italy, 
to which circumstance and nature seem to assign the 


XIV 


PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1848. 


main ascendancy, are Naples and Sardinia. Looking 
fco the former, it is impossible to discover on the face of 
the earth a country more adapted for commercial pros- 
perity. Nature formed it as the garden of Europe and 
the mart of the Mediterranean. Its soil and climate 
could unite the products of the East with those of the 
Western hemisphere. The rich Island of Sicily should 
be the great corn granary of the modern nations as it 
was of the ancient; the figs, the olives, the oranges, of 
both the Sicilies, under skilful cultivation, should equal 
the produce of Spain and the Orient, and the harbors of 
the kingdom (the keys to three quarters of the globe) 
should be crowded with the sails and busy with the life 
of commerce. But in the character of its population 
Naples has been invariably in the rear of Italian pro- 
gress; it caught but partial inspiration from the free 
Kepublics, or even the wise Tyrannies, of the Middle 
Ages; the theatre of frequent revolutions without fruit; 
and all rational enthusiasm created by that insurrection 
which has lately bestowed on Naples the boon of a 
representative system, cannot but be tempered by the 
conviction that of all the states in Italy, this is the one 
which least warrants the belief of permanence to politi- 
cal freedom, or of capacity to retain with vigor what 
may be seized by passion.^ 

1 If the Electoral Chambers iu the new Neapolitan Constitution 
give a fair share of members to the Island of Sicily, it will be rich 
in the inevitable elements of discord, and nothing save a wisdom 
and moderation which cannot soberly be anticipated, can prevent 
tlie ultimate separation of the island from the dominion of Naples. 
Nature has set the ocean between the two countries ; but difference 
in character, and degree and quality of civilization, national jea- 
lousies, historical memories, have trebled the space of the seas that 
roll between them. More easy to unite under one free Parliament 
Spain with Flanders, or re-annex to England its old domains of 


PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1848. 


XV 


Far otherwise is it with Sardinia. Many years since, 
the writer of these pages ventured to predict that the 
time must come when Sardinia would lead the van of 
Italian civilization, and take proud place amongst the 
greater nations of Europe. In the great portion of this 
population there is visible the new blood of a young 
race! It is not, as with other Italian states, a worn-out 
stock; you do not see there a people fallen, proud of the 
past, and lazy amidst ruins, hut a people rising, prac- 
tical, industrious, active; there, in a word, is an eager 
youth to be formed to mature development, not a decrepit 
age to be restored to bloom and muscle. Progress is the 
great characteristic of the Sardinian state. Leave it for 
five years; visit it again, and you behold improvement. 
When you enter the kingdom and find, by the very 
skirts of its admirable roads, a raised footpath for the 
passengers and travellers from town to town, you become 
suddenly aware that you are in a land where close atten- 
tion to the humbler classes is within the duties of a 
government. As you pass on from the more purely 
Italian part of the population, — from the Genoese 
country into that of Piedmont, — the difference be- 
tween a new people and an old, on which I have dwelt, 
becomes visible in the improved cultivation of the soil, 
the better habitations of the laborer, the neater aspect 
of the towns, the greater activity in the thoroughfares. 
To the extraordinary virtues of the King, as King, 

Aquitaine and Normandy, than to unite in one council-chamber 
truly popular, the passions, interests, and prejudices of Sicily and 
Naples. Time will show. And now, in May, 1849, Time has 
already shown the impracticability of the first scheme proposed for 
cordial union between Naples and Sicily, and has rendered it utterly 
impossible, by mutual recollections of hatred, bequeathed by a civil 
war of singular barbarism, that Naples should permanently retain 
Sicily by any other hold than the brute force of conquest. 


XVI 


PEEFACE TO THE EDITION OF 184a 


justice is scarcely done, whether in England or abroad. 

^ Certainly, despite his recent concessions, Charles Albert 
is not and cannot be at heart much of a constitutional 
reformer; and his strong religious tendencies, which, 
perhaps unjustly, have procured him in philosophical 
quarters the character of a bigot, may link him more 
than his political with the cause of the Father of his 
Church. But he is nobly and pre-eminently national, 
careful of the prosperity and jealous of the honor of 
his own state, while conscientiously desirous of the 
independence of Italy. His attention to business is 
indefatigable. Nothing escapes his vigilance. Over 
all departments of the kingdom is the eye of a man 
ever anxious to improve. Already the silk manufac- 
tures of Sardinia almost rival those of Lyons : in their 
own departments the tradesmen of Turin exhibit an 
artistic elegance and elaborate finish, scarcely exceeded 
in the wares of London and Paris. The King’s inter- 
nal regulations are admirable; his laws administered 
with the most impartial justice; his forts and defences 
are in that order without which, at least on the Con- 
tinent, no land is safe; his army is the most perfect in 
Italy. His wise genius extends itself, to the elegant 
as to the useful arts, — an encouragement that shames 
England, and even France, is bestowed upon the School 
for Painters, which has become one of the ornaments of 
his illustrious reign. The character of the main part 
of the population, and the geographical position of his 
country, assist the monarch, and must force on himself 
or his successors in the career of improvement so sig- 
nally begun. In the character of the people, the vigor 
of the Northman ennobles the ardor and fancy of the 
West. In the position of the country, the public mind 
is brought into constant communication with the new 


PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1848. xvii 

ideas in the free lands of Europe. Civilization sets in 
direct currents towards the streets and marts of Turin. 
Whatever the result of the present crisis in Italy, no 
power and no chance which statesmen can predict can 
preclude Sardinia from ultimately heading all that is 
best in Italy. The King may improve his present 
position, or peculiar prejudices, inseparable perhaps 
from the heritage of absolute monarchy, and which the 
raw and rude councils of an Electoral Chamber, newly 
called into life, must often irritate and alarm, may 
check his own progress towards the master throne of 
the Ausonian land. But the people themselves, sooner 
or later, will do the work of the King. And in now 
looking round Italy for a race worthy of Eienzi, and 
able to accomplish his proud dreams, I see but one for 
which the time is ripe or ripening, and I place the 
hopes of Italy in the men of Piedmont and Sardinia. 


London, February 14, 1848. 

N. B. In the short time that has elapsed since the above re- 
marks were penned, events have occurred which justify the doubts 
expressed in these pages, — though by the more sanguine friends of 
Freedom those doubts were then scouted, — namely, as “ to whether 
Italy was ripe for self-government,” “whether it were possible 
that the Austrian domination could be shaken off,” and “ whether 
any steadfast line of policy, favorable to reform, could be expected 
from the Papal Church.” Nothing, however, has occurred to 
weaken my conviction that Piedmont will ultimately become the 
leading state of Italy. I do not withdraw the praise I have bestowed 
on the unfortunate Charles Albert ; he has committed some grave 
errors, and has been betrayed by those who should most zealously 
have supported him. But he has lost a crown in defence of that 
national independence, the ardor for which constituted, as I have 
implied, his predominant characteristic, and has left in the hearts 
of his countrymen but one sentiment of gratitude and veneration. 
Honor to the King who falls in defence of his Fatherland ! — May, 
1849. 


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BOOK I. 

THE TIME. THE PLACE, AND THE MEN. 

Fu da s'ua gioventudine nutricato di latte di eloquenza ; buono 
grammatico, megliore rettorico, autorista buono. . < . Oh, come 
spesso diceva, “ Dove sono quest! buoni Romani ? DoV e loro 
somma giustizia ? Poterommi trovare in tempo che quest! fioris 
cano"? ” Era bel’ omo. . . . Accadde che uno suo frate fu ucciso- 
e non ne fu fatta vendetta di sua morte : non lo poteo aiutare ; 
pensa lungo mano vendicare ’1 sangue di suo frate ; pensa lunga 
mano dirizzare la cittate di Roma male guidata. — Vita di Cola di 
Rienzi. Ed. 1828. Forli. 

From his youth he was nourished with the milk of eloquence ; a 
good grammarian, a better rhetorician, well versed in the writings 
of authors. . . . Oh, how often would he say, “ Where are those 
good Romans ? Where is their supreme justice ? Shall I ever 
behold such times as those in which they flourished? ” He was a 
handsome man. ... It happened that a brother of his was slain 
and no retribution was made for his death ; he could not help him ; 
long did he ponder how to avenge his brother’s blood ; long did he ~ 
ponder how to direct the ill-guided state of Rome. — Life of Cola 
di Rienzi. 


VOL. L — 1 


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RIENZI, 

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


BOOK I. —CHAPTER I. 

The Brothers. 

The celebrated name which forms the title to this work 
will sufficiently apprise the reader that it is in the 
earlier half of the fourteenth century that my story 
opens. 

It was on a summer evening that two youths might 
be seen walking beside the banks of the Tiber, not far 
from that part of its winding course which sweeps by 
the base of Mount Aventine. The path they had 
selected was remote and tranquil. It was only at a 
distance that were seen the scattered and squalid houses 
that bordered the river, from amidst which rose, dark 
and frequent, the high roof and enormous towers which 
marked the fortified mansion of some Roman baron. 
On one side of the river, behind the cottages of the 
fishermen, soared Mount Janiculum, dark with massive 
foliage, from which gleamed at frequent intervals the 
gray walls of many a castellated palace, and the spires 
and columns of a hundred churches; on the other side 
the deserted Aventine rose abrupt and steep, covered 


4 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


with thick brushwood; while on the height, from 
concealed but numerous convents, rolled, not unmusi- 
cally along the quiet landscape and the rippling waves, 
the sound of the holy hell. 

Of the young men introduced in this scene , the elder, 
who might have somewhat passed his twentieth year, 
was of a tall and even commanding stature ; and there 
was that in his presence remarkable and almost noble, 
despite the homeliness of his garb, which consisted of 
the long, loose gown and the plain tunic, both of dark- 
gray serge, which distinguished at that time the dress 
of the humbler scholars who frequented the monasteries 
for such rude knowledge as then yielded a scanty return 
for intense toil. His countenance was handsome, and 
would have been rather gay than thoughtful in its 
expression, hut for that vague and abstracted dreami- 
ness of eye which so usually denotes a propensity to 
reverie and contemplation, and betrays that the past 
or the future is more congenial to the mind than the 
enjoyment and action of the present hour. 

The younger, who was yet a boy, had nothing strik- 
ing in his appearance or countenance, unless an expres- 
sion of great sweetness and gentleness could be so called ; 
and there was something almost feminine in the tender 
deference with which he appeared to listen to his com- 
panion. His dress was that usually worn by the hum- 
bler classes, though somewhat neater, perhaps, and 
newer; and the fond vanity of a mother might be 
detected in the care with which the long and silky 
ringlets had been smoothed and parted as they escaped 
from his cap and flowed midway down his shoulders. 

As they thus sauntered on, beside the whispering 
reeds of the river, each with his arm round the form 
of his comrade, there was a grace in the bearing, in the 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


5 


youth, and in the evident affection of the brothers — for 
such their connection — which elevated the lowliness of 
their apparent condition. 

“Dear brother,” said the elder, “ I cannot express to 
thee how I enjoy these evening hours. To you alone 
I feel as if I were not a mere visionary and idler when 
I talk of the uncertain future, and build up my palaces 
of the air. Our parents listen to me as if I were utter- 
ing fine things out of a hook ; and my dear mother — 
Heaven bless her! — wipes her eyes, and says, ‘ Hark, 
what a scholar he is ! ’ As for the monks, if I ever 
dare look from my Livy and cry, ‘ Thus should Home 
be again!’ they stare and gape and frown, as though 
I had broached an heresy. But you, sweet brother, 
though you share not my studies, sympathize so kindly 
with all their results — you seem so to approve my 
wild schemes and to encourage my ambitious hopes — 
that sometimes I forget our birth, our fortunes, and 
think and dare as if no blood save that of the Teuton 
emperor flowed through our veins.” 

“Methinks, dear Cola,” said the younger brother, 
“that Nature played us an unfair trick, — to you she 
transmitted the royal soul derived from our father’s 
parentage, and to me only the quiet and lowly spirit 
of my mother’s humble lineage.” 

“Nay,” answered Cola, quickly, “you would then 
have the brighter share , — for I should have but the 
Barbarian origin, and you the Koman. Time was, 
when to be a simple Eoman was to be nobler than a 
northern king. Well, well, we may live to see great 
changes! ” 

“I shall live to see thee a great man, and that will 
content me,” said the younger, smiling affectionately. 
“ A great scholar all confess you to be already ; onr 


6 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


mother predicts your fortunes every time she hears of 
your welcome visits to the Colonna. ” 

“ The Colonna! said Cola, with a bitter smile ; “ the 
Colonna, — the pedants! They affect, dull souls, the 
knowledge of the past, play the patron, and misquote 
Latin over their cups! They are pleased to welcome 
me at their board, because the Roman doctors call me 
learned, and because Kature gave me a wild wit, which 
to them is pleasanter than the stale jests of a hired 
buffoon. Yes, they would advance my fortunes, — but 
how 1 By some place in the public offices, which would 
fill a dishonored coffer, by wringing yet more sternly 
the hard-earned coins from our famishing citizens! If 
there be a vile thing in the world, it is a plebeian 
advanced by patricians, not for the purpose of righting 
his own order, but for playing the pander to the worst 
interest of theirs. He who is of the people but makes 
himself a traitor to his birth if he furnishes the excuse 
for these tyrant hypocrites to lift up their hands and 
cry, ‘ See what liberty exists in Rome when we, the 
patricians, thus elevate a plebeian ! ^ Did they ever 
elevate a plebeian if he sympathized with plebeians? 
No, brother; should I be lifted above our condition, I 
will be raised by the arms of my countrymen, and not 
upon their necks.” 

“ All I hope is. Cola, that you will not, in your zeal 
for your fellow-citizens, forget how dear you are to us. 
No greatness could ever reconcile me to the thought that 
it brought you danger. ” 

" And 1 could laugh at all danger if it led to great- 
ness. But greatness, greatness ! Vain dream! Let 
us keep it for our night sleep. Enough of my plans; 
now, dearest brother, of yours.” 

And with the sanguine and cheerful elasticity which 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


7 


belonged to him, the young Cola, dismissing all wilder 
thoughts, bent his mind to listen, and to enter into the 
humbler projects of his brother. The new boat and 
the holiday dress, and the cot removed to a quarter 
more secure from the oppression of the barons, and such 
distant pictures of love as a dark eye and a merry lip 
conjure up to the vague sentiments of a boy, — to 
schemes and aspirations of which such objects made 
the limit, did the scholar listen, with a relaxed brow 
and a tender smile; and often in later life did that 
conversation occur to him, when he shrank from asking 
his own heart which ambition was the wiser. 

“And then,” continued the younger brother, “by 
degrees I might save enough to purchase such a vessel 
as that which we now see, laden, doubtless, with corn 
and merchandise, bringing — oh, such a good return 
that I could fill your room with books, and never hear 
you complain that you were not rich enough to purchase 
some crumbling old monkish manuscript. Ah, that 
would make me so happy ! ” Cola smiled as he pressed 
his brother closer to his breast. 

“Dear boy,” said he, “may it rather be mine to 
provide for your wishes! Yet methinks the masters of 
yon vessel have no enviable possession : see how anx- 
iously the men look round and behind and before: 
peaceful traders though they be, they fear, it seems, 
even in this city (once the emporium of the civilized 
world) , some pirate in pursuit ; and ere the voyage be 
over, they may find that pirate in a Roman noble. 
Alas, to what are we reduced! ” 

The vessel thus referred to was speeding rapidly down 
the river, and some three or four armed men on deck 
were indeed intently surveying the quiet banks on 
either side, as if anticipating a foe. The bark soon, 


8 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


however, glided out of sight, and the brothers fell back 
upon those themfes which require only the future for 
a text to become attractive to the young. 

At length, as the evening darkened, they remembered 
that it was past the usual hour in which they returned 
home, and they began to retrace their steps. 

“Stay,” said Cola, abruptly, “how our talk has 
beguiled me! Father Uberto promised me a rare 
manuscript, which the good friar confesses hath puz- 
zled the whole convent. I was to seek his cell for it 
this evening. Tarry here a few minutes, it is but half- 
way up the Aventine. I shall soon return.” 

“ Can I not accompany you ? ” 

“Nay,” returned Cola, with considerate kindness, 
“you have borne toil all the day, and must be 
wearied; my labors, of the body at least, have been 
light enough. You are delicate, too, and seem fatigued 
already; the rest will refresh you. I shall not be 
long.” 

The boy acquiesced, though he rather wished to 
accompany his brother; but he was of a meek and 
yielding temper, and seldom resisted the lightest 
command of those he loved. He sat him down on a 
little bank by the river-side, and the firm step and 
towering form of his brother were soon hid from his 
gaze by the thick and melancholy foliage. 

At first he sat very quietly, enjoying the cool air, and 
thinking over all the stories of ancient K-ome that his 
brother had told him in their walk. At length he 
recollected that his little sister Irene had begged him 
to bring her home some flowers ; and gathering such as 
he could find at hand (and many a flower grew, wild and 
clustering, over that desolate spot), he again seated 
himself, and began weaving them into one of those 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


9 


garlands for which the Southern peasantry still retain 
their ancient affection and something of their classic 
skill. 

While the boy was thus engaged, the tramp of horses 
and the loud shouting of men were heard at a distance. 
They came near and nearer. 

“ Some baron’s procession, perhaps, returning from 
a feast," thought the boy. “ It will be a pretty sight, 
— their white plumes and scarlet mantles ! I love to 
see such sights, but I will just move out of their 
way. ” 

So, still mechanically plaiting his garland, but with 
eyes turned towards the quarter of the expected proces- 
sion, the young Roman moved yet nearer towards the 
river. 

Presently the train came in view, — a gallant com- 
pany, in truth; horsemen in front, riding two abreast 
where the path permitted, their steeds caparisoned 
superbly, their plumes waving gayly, and the gleam 
of their corselets glittering through the shades of the 
dusky twilight. A large and miscellaneous crowd, all 
armed, some with pikes and mail, others with less war- 
like or worse-fashioned weapons, followed the cavaliers; 
and high above plume and pike floated the blood-red 
banner of the Orsini, with the motto and device (in 
which was ostentatiously displayed the Guelfic badge of 
the keys of St. Peter) wrought in burnished gold. A 
momentary fear crossed the boy’s mind, for at that 
time and in that city a nobleman begirt with his 
swordsmen was more dreaded than a wild beast by the 
plebeians ; but it was already too late to fly , — the train 
were upon him. 

“Ho, boy!” cried the leader of the horsemen, 
Martino di Porto, one of the great house of the 


10 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


Orsini ; “ hast thou seen a boat pass up the river ? — 
But thou must have seen it, — how long since? ” 

“ I saw a large boat about half an hour ago,” answered 
the hoy, terrified by the rough voice and imperious 
bearing of the cavalier. 

“ Sailing right ahead, with a green flag at the stern ? ” 

“ The same, noble sir.” 

“On, then! we will stop her course ere the moon 
rise,” said the baron. “ On ! — let the boy go with us, 
lest he prove traitor, and alarm the Colonna.” 

“An Orsini, an Orsini!” shouted the multitude; 
“on, on! ” and, despite the prayers and remonstrances 
of the boy, he was placed in the thickest of the crowd, 
and borne, or rather dragged, along with the rest, — • 
frightened, breathless, almost weeping, with his poor 
little garland still hanging on his arm, while a sling 
was thrust into his unwilling hand. Still he felt, 
through all his alarm, a kind of childish curiosity to 
see the result of the pursuit. 

By the loud and eager conversation of those about 
him, he learned that the vessel he had seen contained 
a supply of corn destined to a fortress up the river held 
by the Colonna, then at deadly feud with the Orsini ; 
and it was the object of the expedition in which the 
boy had been thus lucklessly entrained to intercept the 
provision, and divert it to the garrison of Martino di 
Porto. This news somewhat increased his consterna- 
tion, for the boy belonged to a family that claimed the 
patronage of the Colonna. 

Anxiously and tearfully he looked with every moment 
up the steep ascent of the Aventine ; but his guardian, 
his protector, still delayed his appearance. 

They had now proceeded some way, when a winding 
in the road brought suddenly before them the object of 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 11 

their pursuit, as, seen by the light of the earliest stars, 
it scudded rapidly down the stream. 

“Now, the saints be blessed! ” quoth the chief; “she 
is ours ! ” ^ - 

“Hold!” said a captain (a German) riding next to 
Martino, in a half whisper. “ I hear sounds which I 
like not, by yonder trees, — hark! the neigh of a horse! 
— by my faith, too, there is the gleam of a corselet.” 

“ Push on, my masters! ” cried Martino; “ the heron 
shall not balk the eagle, — push on! ” 

With renewed shouts those on foot pushed forward, 
till, as they had nearly gained the copse referred to by 
the German, a small, compact body of horsemen, armed 
cap-a-pie t dashed from amidst the trees, and, with 
spears in their rests, charged into the ranks of the 
pursuers. 

“ A Colonna! a Colonna! ” “ An Orsini ! an Orsini ! ” 
were shouts loudly and fiercely interchanged. Martino 
di Porto, a man of great bulk and ferocity, and his 
cavaliers, who were chiefly German mercenaries, met 
the encounter unshaken. “Beware the bear’s hug!” 
cried the Orsini, as down went his antagonist, rider 
and steed, before his lance. 

The contest was short and fierce ! The complete armor 
of the horsemen protected them on either side from 
wounds; not so unscathed fared the half-armed foot- 
followers of the Orsini, as they pressed, each pushed on 
by the other, against the Colonna. After a shower of 
stones and darts, which fell but as hailstones against 
the thick mail of the horsemen, they closed in, and by 
their number obstructed the movements of the steeds, 
while the spear, sword, and battle-axe of their oppo- 
nents made ruthless havoc amongst their undisciplined 
ranks. And Martino, who cared little how many of 


12 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


his mere mob were butchered, seeing that his foes were 
for the moment embarrassed by the wild rush and 
gathering circle of his foot train (for the place of con- 
flict, though wider than the .previous road, was confined 
and narrow), made a sign to some of his horsemen, and 
was about to ride forward towards the boat, now nearly 
out of sight, when a bugle at some distance was answered 
by one of his enemy at hand j and the shout of “ Colonna 
to the rescue ! ” was echoed afar off. A few moments 
brought in view a numerous train of horse at full speed, 
with the banners of the Colonna waving gallantly in the 
front. 

“ A plague on the wizards ! who would have imagined 
they had divined us so craftily 1 ” muttered Martino. 
“ We must not abide these odds; ” and the hand he had 
first raised for advance now gave the signal of retreat. 

Serried breast to breast and in complete order, the 
horsemen of Martino turned to fly ; the foot rabble who 
had come for spoil remained but for slaughter. They 
endeavored to imitate their leaders; but how could they 
all elude the rushing chargers and sharp lances of their 
antagonists, whose blood was heated by the affray, and 
who regarded the lives at their mercy as a boy regards 
the wasp’s nest he destroys ? The crowd dispersed in 
all directions: some, indeed, escaped up the hills, where 
the footing was impracticable to the horses ; some plunged 
into the river and swam across to the opposite bank; 
those less cool or experienced, who fled right onwards, 
served, by clogging the way of their enemy, to facilitate 
the flight of their leaders, but fell themselves, corpse 
upon corpse, butchered in the unrelenting and unresisted 
pursuit. 

“No quarter to the ruffians! Every Orsini slain is 
a robber the less! Strike for God, the Emperor, and the 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


13 


Colonna! ” -—such were the shouts which rung the knell 
of the dismayed and falling fugitives. Among those 
who fled onward, in the very path most accessible to, 
the cavalry, was the young brother of Cola, so inno- 
cently mixed with the affray. Fast he fled, dizzy with 
terror, — poor hoy, scarce before ever parted from his 
parents’ or his brother’s side! — the trees glided past 
him, the banks receded; on he sped, and fast behind 
came the tramp of the hoofs, — the shouts, the curses, 
the fierce laughter of the foe, as they bounded over the 
dead and the dying in their path. He was now at the 
spot in which his brother had left him; hastily he 
glanced behind, and saw the couched lance and horrent 
crest of the horseman close at his rear; despairingly he 
looked up, and, behold! his brother bursting through 
the tangled brakes that clothed the mountain, and 
bounding to his succor. 

“Save me! save me, brother!” he shrieked aloud, 
and the shriek reached Cola’s ear. The snort of the 
fiery charger breathed hot upon him, — a moment more, 
and with one wild shrill cry of “Mercy, mercy!” he 
fell to the ground — a corpse ; the lance of the pursuer 
passing through and through him, from back to breast, 
and nailing him on the very sod where he had sat, full 
of young life and careless hope, not an hour ago. 

The horseman plucked forth his spear, and passed on 
in pursuit of new victims, his comrades following. 
Cola had descended, — was on the spot, kneeling by his 
murdered brother. Presently, to the sound of horn and 
trumpet, came by a nobler company than most of those 
hitherto engaged, who had been, indeed, but the 
advance-guard of the Colonna. At their head rode 
a man in years, whose long white hair escaped from 
his plumed cap and mingled with his venerable beard. 


14 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ How is this ? ” said the chief, reining in his steed. 
“ Young Kienzi ! ” 

The youth looked up, as he heard that voice, and 
then flung himself before the steed of the old noble, 
and clasping his hands, cried out in a scarce articulate 
tone: “It is my brother, noble Stephen, — a boy, a 
mere child! — the best, the mildest! See how his 
blood dabbles the grass! Back, hack, your horse’s 
hoofs are in the stream! Justice, my lord, justice! — 
you are a great man.” 

“ Who slew him ? An Orsini , doubtless ; you shall 
have justice.” 

“Thanks, thanks,” murmured Bienzi, as he tottered 
once more to his brother’s side, turned the boy’s face 
from the grass, and strove wildly to feel the pulse of his 
heart; he drew back his hand hastily, for it was crim- 
soned with blood, and lifting that hand on high, shrieked 
out again, “Justice! justice! ” 

The group round the old Stephen Colonna, hardened 
as they were in such scenes, were affected by the sight. 
A handsome hoy, whose tears ran fast down his cheeks, 
and who rode his palfrey close by the side of the Colonna, 
drew forth his sword. “ My lord,” said he, half sob- 
bing, “ an Orsini only could have butchered a harmless 
lad like this ; let us lose not a moment, — let us on after 
the ruffians.” 

“No, Adrian, no! ” cried Stephen, laying his hand 
on the boy’s shoulder; “your zeal is to be lauded, but 
we must beware an ambush. Our men have ventured 
too far, — what ho, there! — sound a return! ” 

The bugles in a few minutes brought back the pur- 
suers, — among them the horseman whose spear had 
been so fatally misused. He was the leader of those 
engaged in the conflict with Martino di Porto; and the 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 15 

gold wrought into his armor, with the gorgeous trap- 
pings of his charger, betokened his rank. 

" Thanks, my son, thanks,” said the old Colonna to 
this cavalier ; “ you have done well and bravely. But 
tell me, knowest thou — for thou hast an eagle eye — 
which of the Orsini slew this poor hoy ? A foul deed ; 
his family, too, our clients!” 

“Who? — yon lad?” replied the horseman, lifting 
the helmet from his head and wiping his heated brow ; 
“ say you so ! How came he , then , with Martino’s rascals ? 
I fear me the mistake hath cost him dear. I could hut 
suppose him of the Orsini rabble ; and so — and so — ” 

“ You slew him! ” cried Rienzi, in a voice of thun- 
der, starting from the ground. “Justice, then, my 
Lord Stephen, justice! You promised me justice; and 
I will have it! ” 

“ My poor youth,” said the old man, compassionately, 
“you should have had justice against the Orsini; hut 
see you not this has been an error? I do not wonder 
you are too grieved to listen to reason now. We must 
make this up to you. ” 

“ And let this pay for masses for the hoy’s soul; I 
grieve me much for the accident,” said the younger 
Colonna, flinging down a purse of gold. “ Ay, see us 
at the palace next week, young Cola, — next week. 
My father, we had best return towards the boat; its 
safeguard may require us yet.” 

“Right, Gianni; stay, some two of you, and see to 
the poor lad’s corpse, — a grievous accident! how could 
it chance ? ” 

The company passed back the way they came, two of 
the common soldiers alone remaining, except the boy 
Adrian, who lingered behind a few moments, striving 
to console Rienzi, who, as one bereft of sense, remained 


16 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


motionless, gazing on the proud array as it swept along, 
and muttering to himself, “ Justice, justice! I will have 
it yet.” 

The loud voice of the elder Colonna summoned 
Adrian reluctantly and weeping away. “ Let me be 
your brother,” said the gallant boy, affectionately press- 
ing the scholar’s hand to his heart; “I want a brother 
like you.” 

Rienzi made no reply; he did not heed or hear him, 
— dark and stern thoughts, thoughts in which were the 
germ of a mighty revolution, were at his heart. He 
woke from them with a start, as the soldiers were now 
arranging their bucklers so as to make a kind of bier 
for the corpse, and then burst into tears as he fiercely 
motioned them away, and clasped the clay to his breast 
till he was literally soaked with the oozing blood. 

The poor child’s garland had not dropped from his 
arm even when he fell, and, entangled by his dress, it 
still clung around him. It was a sight that recalled to 
Cola all the gentleness, the kind heart, and winning 
graces of his only brother, — his only friend! It was 
a sight that seemed to make yet more inhuman the 
untimely and unmerited fate of that innocent boy. 
“My brother, my brother!” groaned the survivor; 
“ how shall I meet our mother ? — how shall I meet 
even night and solitude again? So young, so harm- 
less! See ye, sirs, he was but too gentle. And they 
will not give us justice, because his murderer was a 
noble and a Colonna. And this gold, too, — gold for 
a brother’s blood! Will they not” — and the young 
man’s eyes glared like fire — “ will they not give us 
justice? Time shall show!” So saying, he bent his 
head over the corpse; his lips muttered, as with some 
prayer or invocation; and then rising, his face was as 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 17 

pale as the dead beside him, — but it was no longer 
pale with grief! 

From that bloody clay and that inward prayer, Cola 
di Eienzi rose a new being. With his young brother 
died his own youth. But for that event, the future 
liberator of Borne might have been but a dreamer, a 
scholar, a poet, — the peaceful rival of Petrarch ; a man 
of thoughts, not deeds. But from that time all his 
faculties, energies, fancies, genius became concentrated 
into a single point; and patriotism, before a vision, 
leaped into the life and vigor of a passion lastingly 
kindled, stubbornly hardened, and awfully consecrated 
— by revenge! 


VOL. I. — 2 


18 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTER II. 

An Historical Survey. — Not to be passed over, except by those 
who dislike to understand what they read. 

Years had passed away, and the death of the Roman 
hoy amidst more noble and less excusable slaughter 
was soon forgotten, — forgotten almost by the parents 
of the slain, in the growing fame and fortunes of their 
eldest son; forgotten and forgiven never by that son 
himself. But between that prologue of blood and the 
political drama which ensues, — between the fading 
interest, as it were, of a dream, and the more busy, 
actual, and continuous excitements of sterner life, — 
this may he the most fitting time to place before 
the reader a short and rapid outline of the state and 
circumstances of that city in which the principal scenes 
of this story are laid, — an outline necessary, perhaps, 
to many for a full comprehension of the motives of the 
actors and the vicissitudes of the plot. 

Despite the miscellaneous and mongrel tribes that 
had forced their settlements in the City of the Caesars, 
the Roman population retained an inordinate notion of 
their own supremacy over the rest of the world; and, 
degenerated from the iron virtues of the Republic, 
possessed all the insolent and unruly turbulence which 
characterized the Plehs of the ancient Forum. Amongst 
a ferocious yet not a brave populace, the nobles sup- 
ported themselves less as sagacious tyrants than as 
relentless banditti. The popes had struggled in vain 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 19 

against these stubborn and stern patricians. Their 
state derided, their command defied, their persons 
publicly outraged, the pontiff sovereigns of the rest of 
Europe resided at the Vatican as prisoners under terror 
of execution. When, thirty-eight years before the date 
of the events we are about to witness, a Frenchman, 
under the name of Clement V. , had ascended the chair 
of St. Peter, the new pope, with more prudence than 
valor, had deserted Pome for the tranquil retreat of 
Avignon ; and the luxurious town of a foreign province 
became the court of the Roman pontiff, and the throne 
of the Christian Church. 

Thus deprived of even the nominal check of the papal 
presence, the power of the nobles might he said to have 
no limits, save their own caprice or their mutual jeal- 
ousies and feuds. Though arrogating through fabulous 
genealogies their descent from the ancient Romans, 
they were in reality, for the most part, the sons of the 
holder barbarians of the North; and, contaminated by 
the craft of Italy rather than imbued with its national 
affections, they retained the disdain of their foreign 
ancestors for a conquered soil and a degenerate people. 
While the rest of Italy, especially in Florence, in 
Venice, and in Milan, was fast and far advancing 
beyond the other states of Europe in civilization and 
in art, the Romans appeared rather to recede than to 
improve, — unblessed by laws, unvisited by art, stran- 
gers at once to the chivalry of a warlike, and the graces 
of a peaceful people. But they still possessed the sense 
and desire of liberty, and by ferocious paroxysms and 
desperate struggles sought to vindicate for their city 
the title it still assumed of “ the Metropolis of the 
World.” For the last two centuries they had known 
various revolutions, — brief, often bloody, and always 


20 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


unsuccessful. Still, there was the empty pageant of a 
popular form of government. The thirteen quarters of 
the city named each a chief ; and the assembly of these 
magistrates, called Caporioni, by theory possessed an 
authority they had neither the power nor the courage 
to exert. Still there was the proud name of Senator; 
but at the present time the office was confined to one 
or to two persons, sometimes elected by the pope, some- 
times by the nobles. The authority attached to the 
name seems to have had no definite limit; it was that of 
a stern dictator or an indolent puppet, according as he 
who held it had the power to enforce the dignity he 
assumed. It was never conceded but to nobles, and it 
was by the nobles that all the outrages were committed. 
Private enmity alone was gratified whenever public 
justice was invoked; and the vindication of order was 
but the execution of revenge. 

Holding their palaces as the castles and fortresses of 
princes, each asserting his own independency of all 
authority and law, and planting fortifications, and 
claiming principalities in the patrimonial territories 
of the Church, the barons of Rome made their state 
still more secure and still more odious by the main- 
tenance of troops of foreign (chiefly of German) merce- 
naries, at once braver in disposition, more disciplined 
in service, and more skilful in arms than even the 
freest Italians of that time. Thus they united the 
judicial and the military force, not for the protection, 
but for the ruin of Rome. Of these barons, the most 
powerful were the Orsini and Colonna; their feuds 
were hereditary and incessant, and every day witnessed 
the fruits of their lawless warfare, in bloodshed, in 
rape, and in conflagration. The flattery or the friend- 
ship of Petrarch, too credulously believed by modern 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


21 


historians, has invested the Colonna, especially of the 
date now entered upon, with an elegance and a dignity 
not their own. Outrage, fraud, and assassination, a 
sordid avarice in securing lucrative offices to them- 
selves, an insolent oppression of their citizens, and 
the most dastardly cringing to power superior to their 
own (with hut few exceptions), mark the character of 
the first family of Borne. But, wealthier than the rest 
of the barons, they were therefore more luxurious 
and perhaps more intellectual ; and their pride was 
flattered in being patrons of those arts of which they 
could never have become the professors. From these 
multiplied oppressors the Boman citizens turned with 
fond and impatient regret to their ignorant and dark 
notions of departed liberty and greatness. They con- 
founded the times of the Empire with those of the 
Bepublic, and often looked to the Teutonic king, who 
obtained his election from beyond the Alps, but his 
title of emperor from the Bomans, as the deserter of his 
legitimate trust and proper home; vainly imagining 
that if both the emperor and the pontiff fixed their 
residence in Borne, Liberty and Law would again seek 
their natural shelter beneath the resuscitated majesty 
of the Boman people. 

The absence of the pope and the papal court served 
greatly to impoverish the citizens ; and they had suffered 
yet more visibly by the depredations of hordes of rob- 
bers, numerous and unsparing, who infested Bomagna, 
obstructing all the public ways, and were, sometimes 
secretly, sometimes openly, protected by the barons, 
who often recruited their banditti garrisons by banditti 
soldiers. 

But besides the lesser and ignobler robbers, there had 
risen in Italy a far more formidable description of free- 


22 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


hooters. A German, who assumed the lofty title of the 
Duke Werner, had, a few years prior to the period we 
approach, enlisted and organized a considerable force, 
styled “The Great Company,” with which he besieged 
cities and invaded states, without any object less shame- 
less than that of pillage. His example was soon imi- 
tated; numerous “ Companies,” similarly constituted, 
devastated the distracted and divided land. They 
appeared, suddenly raised as if by magic, before the 
walls of a city, and demanded immense sums as the 
purchase of peace. Neither tyrant nor commonwealth 
maintained a force sufficient to resist them ; and if other 
northern mercenaries were engaged to oppose them, it 
was only to recruit the standards of the freebooters 
with deserters. Mercenary fought not mercenary, nor 
German German; and greater pay and more unbri- 
dled rapine made the tents of the “ Companies ” far 
more attractive than the regulated stipends of a city, or 
the dull fortress and impoverished coffers of a chief. 
Werner, the most implacable and ferocious of all these 
adventurers, and who had so openly gloried in his 
enormities as to wear upon his breast a silver plate 
engraved with the words “ Enemy to God, to Pity, and 
to Mercy,” had not long since ravaged Pomagna with 
fire and sword. But whether induced by money, or 
unable to control the fierce spirits he had raised, he 
afterwards led the bulk of his company back to Ger- 
many. Small detachments, however, remained, scat- 
tered throughout the land, waiting only an able leader 
once more to reunite them. Amongst those who appeared 
most fitted for that destiny was Walter de Montreal, a 
Knight of St. John and gentleman of Provence, 
whose valor and military genius had already, though 
yet young, raised his name into dreaded celebrity, and 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


23 


whose ambition, experience, and sagacity, relieved by 
certain chivalric and noble qualities, were suited to 
enterprises far greater and more important than the 
violent depredations of the atrocious Werner. 'From 
these scourges no state had suffered more grievously 
than Rome. The patrimonial territories of the pope 
— in part wrested from him by petty tyrants, in part 
laid waste by these foreign robbers — yielded but a 
scanty supply to the necessities of Clement VI., the 
most accomplished gentleman and the most graceful 
voluptuary of his time ; and the good father had devised 
a plan whereby to enrich at once the Romans and their 
pontiff. 

R’early fifty years before the time we enter upon, in 
order both to replenish the papal coffers and pacify the 
starving Romans, Boniface VIII. had instituted the 
Festival of the Jubilee, or Holy Year, — in fact, a revi- 
val of a pagan ceremonial. A plenary indulgence was 
promised to every Catholic who in that year and in 
the first year of every succeeding century should visit 
the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul. An immense 
concourse of pilgrims, from every part of Christendom, 
had attested the wisdom of the invention ; “ and two 
priests stood night and day, with rakes in their hands, 
to collect without counting the heaps of gold and silver 
that were poured on the altar of St. Paul. ” ^ 

It is not to be wondered at that this most lucrative 
festival should, ere the next century was half expired, 
appear to a discreet pontiff to be too long postponed; 
and both pope and city agreed in thinking it might 
well bear a less distant renewal. Accordingly, Clement 
VI. had proclaimed, under the name of the Mosaic 
Jubilee, a second Holy Year for 1350, — namely, three 
1 Gibbon, vol. xii. c. 59. 


24 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

years distant from that date at which, in the next chap- 
ter, my narrative will commence. This circumstance 
had a great effect in whetting the popular indignation 
against the barons, and preparing the events I shall 
relate; for the roads were, as I before said, infested 
by the banditti, the creatures and allies of the barons; 
and if the roads were not cleared, the pilgrims might 
not attend. It was the object of the pope’s vicar, 
Eaimond, Bishop of Orvietto (had politician and good 
canonist), to seek by every means to remove all 
impediment between the offerings of devotion and the 
treasury of St. Peter. 

Such, in brief, was the state of Eome at the period 
we are about to examine. Her ancient mantle of renown 
still, in the eyes of Italy and of Europe, cloaked her 
ruins. In name, at least, she was still the queen of 
the earth; and from her hands came the crown of the' 
Emperor of the North, and the keys of the father of the 
Church. Her situation was precisely that which pre- 
sented a vast and glittering triumph to bold ambition, 
an inspiring if mournful spectacle to determined patriot- 
ism, and a fitting stage for that more august tragedy 
which seeks its incidents, selects its actors, and shapes 
its moral amidst the vicissitudes and crimes of nations. 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


25 


CHAPTER III. 

The Brawl. 

On an evening in April, 1347, and in one of those wide 
spaces in which Modern and Ancient Rome seemed 
blended together, — equally desolate and equally in 
ruins, — a miscellaneous and indignant populace were 
assembled. That morning the house of a Roman jew- 
eller had been forcibly entered and pillaged by the 
soldiers of Martino di Porto, with a daring effrontery 
which surpassed even the ordinary license of the barons. 
The sympathy and sensation throughout the city were 
deep and ominous. 

“ Never will I submit to this tyranny! ” 

“Nor I!” 

“ Nor I!” 

“ Nor, by the bones of St. Peter, will I! ” 

“ And what, my friends, is this tyranny to which you 
will not submit ? ” said a young nobleman, addressing 
himself to the crowd of citizens who, heated, angry, 
half armed, and with the vehement gestures of Italian 
passion, were now sweeping down the long and narrow 
street that led to the gloomy quarter occupied by the 
Orsini. 

“ Ah, my lord! ” cried two or three of the citizens in 
a breath; “you will right us, •— you will see justice 
done to us: you are a Colonna.” 

“ Ha, ha, ha ! ” laughed scornfully one man of 
gigantic frame, and wielding on high a huge hammer, 


26 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


indicative of his trade. “Justice and Colonna! body 
of God ! those names are not often found together. ” 

“ Down with him ! down with him ! He is an Orsinist, 
— down with him! ” cried at least ten of the throng; 
but no hand was raised against the giant. 

“ He speaks the truth,” said a second voice, firmly. 

“Ay, that doth he,” said a third, knitting his brows 
and unsheathing his knife, “and we will abide by it. 
The Orsini are tyrants; and the Colonnas are, at the 
best, as bad.” 

“ Thou liest in thy teeth , ruffian ! ” cried the young 
noble, advancing into the press and confronting the last 
asperser of the Colonna. 

Before the flashing eye and menacing gesture of the 
cavalier, the worthy brawler retreated some steps, so as 
to leave an open space between the towering form of the 
smith, and the small, slender, but vigorous frame of the 
young noble. 

Taught from their birth to despise the courage of the 
plebeians, even while careless of much reputation as to 
their own, the patricians of Eome were not unaccus- 
tomed to the rude fellowship of these brawls; nor was 
it unoften that the mere presence of a noble sufiiced to 
scatter whole crowds, that had the moment before been 
breathing vengeance against his order and his house. 

Waving his hand, therefore, to the smith, and utterly 
unheeding either his brandished weapon or his vast 
stature, the young Adrian di Gastello, a distant kins- 
man of the Colonna, haughtily bade him give way. 

“ To your homes, friends! and know,” he added with 
some dignity, “ that ye wrong us much if ye imagine we 
share the evil-doings of the Orsini, or are pandering 
solely to our own passions in the feud between their 
house and ours. May the Holy Mother so judge me,” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. 


27 


continued he, devoutly lifting up his eyes, ‘^as I now 
with truth declare that it is for your wrongs and for 
the wrongs of Kome that I have drawn this sword 
against the Orsini.” 

“ So say all the tyrants,” rejoined the smith, hardily, 
as he leaned his hammer against a fragment of stone, — 
some remnant of ancient Eome, — “ they never fight 
against each other, but it is for our good. One Colonna 
cuts me the throat of Orsini’s baker, — it is for our 
good! another Colonna seizes on the daughter of Orsini’s 
tailor, — it is for our good! Our good, — yes, for the 
good of the people, — the good of the bakers and tailors, 
eh?” 

“Fellow,” said the young nobleman, gravely, “if a 
Colonna did thus, he did wrong; but the holiest cause 
may have bad supporters.” 

“ Yes, the Holy Church itself is propped on very 
indifferent columns,” answered the smith, in a rude 
witticism on the affection of the pope for the Colonna. 

“He blasphemes! the smith blasphemes!” cried the 
partisans of that powerful house. “A Colonna, a 
Colonna! ” 

“An Orsini, an Orsini!” was no less promptly the 
counter cry. 

“ The People ! ” shouted the smith , waving his 
formidable weapon far above the heads of the group. 

In an instant the whole throng, who had at first 
united against the aggression of one man, were divided 
by the hereditary wrath of faction. At the cry of 
Orsini several new partisans hurried to the spot; the 
friends of the Colonna drew themselves on one side, the 
defenders of the Orsini on the other, — and the few who 
agreed with the smith that both factions were equally 
odious, and the people was the sole legitimate cry in 


28 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


a popular commotion, would have withdrawn them- 
selves from the approaching rnMee^ if the smith him- 
self, who was looked upon by them as an authority of 
great influence , had not — whether from resentment at 
the haughty bearing of the young Colonna, or from an 
appetite of contest not uncommon in men of a bulk and 
force which assures them in all personal affrays the 
lofty pleasure of superiority, — if, I say, the smith him- 
self had not, after a pause of indecision, retired among 
the Orsini, and entrained, by his example, the alliance 
of his friends with the favorers of that faction. 

In popular commotions each man is whirled along 
with the herd, often half against his own approbation 
or assent. The few words of peace by which Adrian 
di Gastello commenced an address to his friends were 
drowned amidst their shouts. Proud to find in their 
ranks one of the most beloved and one of the noblest 
of that name, the partisans of the Colonna placed him 
in their front, and charged impetuously on their foes. 
Adrian, however, who had acquired from circumstances 
something of that chivalrous code which he certainly 
could not have owed to his Roman birth, disdained at 
first to assault men among whom he recognized no equal, 
either in rank or the practice of arms. He contented 
himself with putting aside the few strokes that were 
aimed at him in the gathering confusion of the conflict, 
— few; for those who recognized him, even amidst the 
bitterest partisans of the Orsini, were not willing to 
expose themselves to the danger and odium of spilling 
the blood of a man who, in addition to his great birth 
and the terrible power of his connections, was possessed 
of a personal popularity which he owed rather to a 
comparison with the vices of his relatives than to any 
remarkable virtues hitherto displayed by himself. The 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


29 


smith alone, who had as yet taken no active part in the 
fray, seemed to gather himself up in determined oppo- 
sition as the cavalier now advanced within a few steps 
of him. 

" Did we not tell thee,” quoth the giant, frowning, 
“ that the Colonna were , not less than the Orsini , the 
foes of the people ? Look at thy followers and clients ; 
are they not cutting the throats of humble men by way 
of vengeance for the crime of a great one? But that is 
the way one patrician always scourges the insolence of 
another. He lays the rod on the hacks of the people, 
and then cries, ‘ See how just I am! ’ ” 

“ I do not answer thee now,” answered Adrian; “ but 
if thou regrettest with me this waste of blood, join with 
me in attempting to prevent it.” 

“ I , — not I ! let the blood of the slaves flow to-day : 
the time is fast coming when it shall he washed away 
by the blood of the lords.” 

“Away, ruffian!” said Adrian, seeking no further 
parley, and touching the smith with the flat side of his 
sword. In an instant the hammer of the smith swung 
in the air, and , hut for the active spring of the young 
noble, would infallibly have crushed him to the earth. 
Ere the smith could gain time for a second blow, 
Adrian’s sword passed twice through his right arm, 
and the weapon fell heavily to the ground. 

“ Slay him, slay him ! ” cried several of the clients 
of the Colonna, now pressing, dastard-like, round the 
disarmed and disabled smith. 

“ Ay, slay him! ” said, in tolerable Italian hut with 
a barbarous accent, one man, half clad in armor, who 
had but just joined the group, and who was one of those 
wild German bandits whom the Colonna held in their 
pay ; “ he belongs to a horrible gang of miscreants sworn 


30 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


against all order and peace. He is one of E-ienzi’s 
followers, and, bless the Three Kings! raves about the 
People.” 

“Thou sayest right, barbarian,” said the sturdy 
smith, in a loud voice, and tearing aside the vest from 
his breast with his left hand; “come all, — Colonna 
and Orsini, — dig to this heart with your sharp blades, 
and when you have reached the centre, you will find 
there the object of your common hatred, — ‘ Eienzi and 
the People I ’ ” 

As he uttered these words, in language that would 
have seemed above his station (if a certain glow and 
exaggeration of phrase and sentiment were not common, 
when excited, to all the Eomans), the loudness of his 
voice rose above the noise immediately round him, and 
stilled for an instant the general din; and when at 
last the words “ Eienzi and the People ” rang forth, 
they penetrated midway through the increasing crowd, 
and were answered, as by an echo, with a hundred voices, 
“ Eienzi and the People ! ” 

But whatever impression the words of the mechanic 
made on others, it was equally visible in the young 
Colonna. At the name of Eienzi the glow of excite- 
ment vanished from his cheek; he started back, mut- 
tered to himself, and for a moment seemed, even in the 
midst of that stirring commotion, to be lost in a moody 
and distant reverie. He recovered, as the shout died 
away; and saying to the smith in a low tone, “Friend, 
I am sorry for thy wound; but seek me on the morrow, 
and thou shalt find thou hast wronged me ; ” he beckoned 
to the German to follow him, and threaded his way 
through the crowd, which generally gave back as he 
advanced. For the bitterest hatred to the order of the 
nobles was at that time in Eome mingled with a servile 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


31 


respect for their persons, and a mysterious awe of their 
uncontrollable power. 

As Adrian passed through that part of the crowd in 
which the fray had not yet commenced, the murmurs 
that followed him were not those which many of his 
race could have heard. 

“ A Colonna,” said one. 

" Yet no ravisher,” said another, laughing wildly. 

“Nor murderer,” muttered a third, pressing his hand 
to his breast. “ ’T is not against him that my father^s 
blood cries aloud.” 

“Bless him,” said a fourth, “ for as yet no man curses 
him.” 

“Ah, God help us! ” said an old man, with a long 
gray beard, leaning on his staff: “the serpent ^s young 
yet ; the fangs will show by and by. ” 

“For shame, father! he is a comely youth, and not 
proud in the least. What a smile he hath ! ” quoth a 
fair matron, who kept on the outskirt of the melee. 

“ Farewell to a man’s honor when a noble smiles on 
his wife ! ” was the answer. 

“Nay,” said Luigi, a jolly butcher, with a roguish 
eye, “ what a man can win fairly from maid or wife, 
that let him do, whether plebeian or noble, — that’s 
my morality ; but when an ugly old patrician finds fair 
words will not win fair looks, and carries me off a dame 
on the back of a German boar, with a stab in the side 
for comfort to the spouse, then, I say, he is a wicked 
man and an adulterer.” 

While such were the comments and the murmurs that 
followed the noble, very different were the looks and 
words that attended the German soldier. 

Equally, nay, with even greater promptitude, did the 
crowd make way at his armed and heavy tread; but 


32 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


not with looks of reverence : the eye glared as he 
approached; but the cheek grew pale, the head bowed, 
the lip quivered; each man felt a shudder of hate and 
fear, as recognizing a dread and mortal foe. And well 
and wrathfully did the fierce mercenary note the signs 
of the general aversion. He pushed on rudely, half 
smiling in contempt, half frowning in revenge, as he 
looked from side to side; and his long, matted light 
hair, tawny-colored mustache, and brawny front con- 
trasted strongly with the dark eyes, raven locks, and 
slender frames of the Italians. 

“ May Lucifer double damn those German cut- 
throats! ” muttered, between his grinded teeth, one of 
the citizens. 

“ Amen ! ” answered heartily another. 

“Hush!” said a third, timorously looking round; 
“if one of them hear thee, thou art a lost man.” 

“Oh, Rome, Rome, to what art thou fallen,” said 
bitterly one citizen, clothed in black, and of a higher 
seeming than the rest, “ when thou shudderest in thy 
streets at the tread of a hired barbarian ! ” 

“ Hark to one of our learned men and rich citizens ! ” 
said the butcher, reverently. 

“ ’T is a friend of Rienzi’s,” quoth another of the 
group, lifting his cap. 

With downcast eyes, and a face in which grief, 
shame, and wrath were visibly expressed, Pandulfo di 
Guido, a citizen of birth and repute, swept slowly 
through the crowd and disappeared. 

Meanwhile Adrian, having gained a street which, 
though in the neighborhood of the crowd, was empty 
and desolate, turned to his fierce comrade. “Rodolf! ” 
said he , “ mark ! — no violence to the citizens. Return 
to the crowd, collect the friends of our house, withdraw 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


33 


them from the scene: let not the Colonna be blamed 
for this day’s violence; and assure our followers, in my 
name, that I swear, by the knighthood I received at the 
emperor’s hands, that by my sword' shall Martino di 
Porto be punished for his outrage. Fain would I, in 
person, allay the tumult; but my presence only seems 
to sanction it. Go, — thou hast weight with them all.” 

“Ay, signor, the weight of blows!” answered the 
grim soldier. “But the command is hard; I would 
fain let their puddle-blood flow an hour or two longer. 
Yet, pardon me: in obeying thy orders, do I obey those 
of my master, thy kinsman ? It is old Stephen Colonna 

— who seldom spares blood or treasure, God bless him 

— (save his own!) whose money I hold, and to whose 
bests I am sworn.” 

“Diavolo!” muttered the cavalier, and the angry 
spot was on his cheek; but, with the habitual self- 
control of the Italian nobles, he smothered his rising 
choler, and said aloud, with calmness but dignity, — 

“ Do as I bid thee; check this tumult, — make us the 
forbearing party. Let all be still within one hour hence, 
and call on me to-morrow for thy reward; be this purse 
an earnest of my future thanks. As for my kinsman, 
whom I command thee to name more reverently, — ’t is 
in his name I speak. Hark! the din increases, the 
contest swells: go, — lose not another moment!” 

Somewhat awed by the quiet firmness of the patrician, 
Eodolf nodded, without answer, slid the money into his 
bosom, and stalked away into the thickest of the throng. 
But even ere he arrived, a sudden reaction had taken 
place. 

The young cavalier, left alone in that spot, followed 
with his eyes the receding form of the mercenary, as the 
sun, now setting, shone slant upon his glittering casque, 

VOL I. — 3 


34 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


and said bitterly to himself: “ Unfortunate city, foun- 
tain of all mighty memories, fallen queen of a thousand 
nations, how art thou decrowned and spoiled by thy 
recreant and apostate children! Thy nobles divided 
against themselves; thy people cursing thy nobles; thy 
priests, who should sow peace, planting discord; the 
father of thy church deserting thy stately walls, his 
home a refuge, his mitre a fief, his court a Gallic vil- 
lage, — and we, we of the haughtiest blood of E-ome, 
we, the sons of Caesars and of the lineage of demi- 
gods, guarding an insolent and abhorred state by the 
swords of hirelings, who mock our cowardice while they 
receive our pay, who keep our citizens slaves, and 
lord it over their very masters in return! Oh that 
we, the hereditary chiefs of Kome, could but feel, oh 
that we could but find, our only legitimate safeguard in 
the grateful hearts of our countrymen! ” 

So deeply did the young Adrian feel the galling 
truth of all he uttered that the indignant tears rolled 
down his cheeks as he spoke. He felt no shame as he 
dashed them away ; for that weakness which weeps for 
a fallen race is the tenderness not of women but of 
angels. 

As he turned slowly to quit the spot, his steps were 
suddenly arrested by a loud shout : “ Eienzi ! Eienzi ! ” 
smote the air. Erom the walls of the Capitol to the 
bed of the glittering Tiber, that name echoed far and 
wide; and as the shout died away, it was swallowed up 
in a silence so profound, so universal, so breathless, 
that you might have imagined that death itself had 
fallen over the city. And now, at the extreme end of 
the crowd, and elevated above their level, on vast frag- 
ments of stone which had been dragged from the ruins 
of Eome in one of the late frequent tumults between 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


35 


contending factions, to serv^ as a barricade for citizens 
against citizens, — on these silent memorials of the past 
grandeur, the present misery, of Kome, stood that 
extraordinary man who above all his race was the most 
penetrated with the glories of the one time, with the 
degradation of the other. 

From the distance at which he stood from the scene, 
Adrian could only distinguish the dark outline of 
Bienzi’s form; he could only hear the faint sound of 
his mighty voice; he could only perceive, in the sub- 
dued yet waving sea of human beings that spread 
around, their heads bared in the last rays of the sun, 
the unutterable effect which an elcTquence, described 
by contemporaries almost as miraculous, but in reality 
less so from the genius of the man than the sympathy 
of the audience, created in all who drank into their 
hearts and souls the stream of its burning thoughts. 

It was but for a short time that that form was visible 
to the earnest eye, that that voice at intervals reached 
the straining ear, of Adrian di Gastello; but that time 
sufficed to produce all the effect which Adrian himself 
had desired. 

Another shout, more earnest, more prolonged, than 
the first, — a shout in which spoke the release of swell- 
ing thoughts, of intense excitement, — ^ betokened the 
close of the harangue; and then you might see, after a 
minute’s pause, the crowd breaking in all directions, and 
pouring down the avenues in various knots and groups, 
each testifying the strong and lasting impression made 
upon the multitude by that address. Every cheek was 
flushed, every tongue spoke; the animation of the 
orator had passed, like a living spirit, into the breasts 
of the audience. He had thundered against the disor- 
ders of the patricians, yet by a word he had disarmed 


36 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


the anger of the plebeiansithe had preached freedom, 
yet he had opposed license. He had calmed the present 
by a promise of the future. He had chid their quarrels, 
yet had supported their cause. He had mastered the 
revenge of to-day by a solemn assurance that there 
should come justice for the morrow. So great may be 
the power, so mighty the eloquence, so formidable the 
genius, of one man, — without arms, without rank, 
without sword or ermine, who addresses himself to a 
people that is oppressed! 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


37 


CHAPTER IV. 

An Adventure. 

Avoiding the broken streams of the dispersed crowd, 
Adrian Colonna strode rapidly down one of the narrow 
streets leading to his palace, which was situated at no 
inconsiderable distance from the place in which the late 
contest had occurred. The education of his life made 
him feel a profound interest, not only in the divisions 
and disputes of his country, but also in the scene he 
had just witnessed, and the authority exercised by 
Rienzi. 

An orphan of a younger but opulent branch of the 
Colonna, Adrian had been brought up under the care 
and guardianship of his kinsman, that astute yet valiant 
Stephen Colonna, who, of all the nobles of Rome, was 
the most powerful, alike from the favor of the pope, 
and the number of armed hirelings whom his wealth 
enabled him to maintain. Adrian had early manifested 
what in that age was considered an extraordinary dis- 
position towards intellectual pursuits, and had acquired 
much of the little that was then known of the ancient 
language and the ancient history of his country. 

Though Adrian was but a boy at the time in which, 
first presented to the reader, he witnessed the emotions 
of Rienzi at the death of his brother, his kind heart had 
been penetrated Avith sympathy for Cola’s affliction, and 
shame for the apathy of his kinsmen at the result of 
their own feuds. He had earnestly sought the friend- 
ship of Rienzi, and, despite his years, had become 


38 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


aware of the power and energy of his character. But 
though Kienzi after a short time had appeared to think 
no more of his brother’s death, — though he again 
entered the halls of the Colonna, and shared their dis- 
dainful hospitalities, — he maintained a certain distance 
and reserve of manner Avhich even Adrian could only 
partially overcome. He rejected every offer of service, 
favor, or promotion; and any unwonted proof of kind- 
ness from Adrian seemed, instead of making him more 
familiar, to offend him into colder distance. The easy 
humor and conversational vivacity which had first 
rendered him a welcome guest with those who passed 
their lives between fighting and feasting, had changed 
into a vein ironical, cynical, and severe. But the dull 
barons were equally amused at his wit, and Adrian was 
almost the only one who detected the serpent couched 
beneath the smile. 

Often Rienzi sat at the feast, silent but observant, 
as if watching every look, weighing every word, taking 
gauge and measurement of the intellect, policy, tempera- 
ment, of every guest; and when he had seemed to satisfy 
himself, his spirits would rise, his words flow, and 
while his dazzling but bitter wit lit up the revel, none 
saw that the unmirthful flash was the token of the com- 
ing storm. But all the while he neglected no occasion 
to mix with the humbler citizens, to stir up their minds, 
to inflame their imaginations, to kindle their emulation, 
with pictures of the present and with legends of the 
past. He grew in popularity and repute, and was yet 
more in power with the herd, because in favor with the 
nobles. Perhaps it was for that reason that he had 
continued the guest of the Colonna. 

When, six years before the present date, the Capitol 
of the Caesars witnessed the triumph of Petrarch, the 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


39 


scholastic fame of the young Eienzi had attracted the 
friendship of the poet, — a friendship that continued 
with slight interruption to the last, through careers so 
widely different; and afterwards, one among the Eoman 
deputies to Avignon, he had been conjoined with 
Petrarch ^ to supplicate Clement VI. to remove the 
Holy See from Avignon to Eome. It was in this mis- 
sion that for the first time he evinced his extraordi- 
nary powers of eloquence and persuasion. The pontiff, 
indeed, more desirous of ease than glory, was not con- 
vinced by the arguments, but he was enchanted with the 
pleader; and Eienzi returned to Eome loaded with 
honors, and clothed with the dignity of high and re- 
sponsible office. No longer the inactive scholar, the 
gay companion, he rose at once to pre-eminence above 
all his fellow-citizens. Never before had authority been 
borne with so austere an integrity, so uncorrupt a zeal. 
He had sought to impregnate his colleagues with the 
same loftiness of principle, — he had failed. Now, 
secure in his footing, he had begun openly to appeal 
to the people; and already a new spirit seemed to ani- 
mate the populace of Eome. 

While these were the fortunes of Eienzi, Adrian had 
been long separated from him, and absent from Eome. 

The Colonna were stanch supporters of the imperial 
party, and Adrian di Gastello had received and obeyed 
an invitation to the emperor’s court. Under that mon- 
arch he had initiated himself in arms, and among the 
knights of Germany he had learned to temper the 

1 According to the modern historians ; but it seems more pro- 
bable that Rienzi’s mission to Avignon was posterior to that of 
Petrarch. However this be, it was at Avignon that Petrarch and 
Eienzi became most intimate, as Petrarch himself observes in one 
of his letters. 


40 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

natural Italian shrewdness with the chivalry of northern 
valor. 

In leaving Bavaria, he had sojourned a short time 
in the solitude of one of his estates by the fairest lake 
of northern Italy; and thence, with a mind improved 
alike by action and study, had visited many of the free 
Italian states, imbibed sentiments less prejudiced than 
those of his order, and acquired an early reputation for 
himself while inly marking the characters and deeds of 
others. In him the best qualities of the Italian noble 
were united. Passionately addicted to the cultivation 
of letters, subtle and profound in policy, gentle and 
bland of manner, dignifying a love of pleasure with a 
certain elevation of taste, he yet possessed a gallantry of 
conduct, and purity of honor, and an aversion from 
cruelty, which were then very rarely found in the 
Italian temperament, and which even the Chivalry of 
the North, while maintaining among themselves, usually 
abandoned the moment they came into contact with the 
systematic craft and disdain of honesty which made 
the character of the ferocious yet wily South. With 
these qualities he combined, indeed, the softer passions 
of his countrymen, — he adored Beauty, and he made a 
deity of Love. 

He had but a few weeks returned to his native city, 
whither his reputation had already preceded him. and 
where his early affection for letters and gentleness of 
bearing were still remembered. He returned to find the 
position of Rienzi far more altered than his own. 
Adrian had not yet sought the scholar. He wished first 
to judge with his own eyes, and at a distance, of the 
motives and object of his conduct; for partly he caught 
the suspicions which his own order entertained of 
Rienzi, and partly he shared in the trustful enthusiasm 
of the people. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


41 


“Certainly,” said he now to himself, as he walked 
musingly onward, — “ certainly, no man has it more in 
his power to reform our diseased state, to heal our divi- 
sions, to awaken our citizens to the recollections of 
ancestral virtue. But that very power, how dangerous 
is it! Have I not seen, in the free states of Italy, men, 
called into authority for the sake of preserving the 
people, honest themselves at first, and then, drunk with 
the sudden rank, betraying the very cause which had 
exalted them ? True, those men were chiefs and 
nobles; hut are plebeians less human? Howheit I 
have heard and seen enough from afar, — I will now 
approach and examine the man himself. ” 

While thus soliloquizing, Adrian but little noted the 
various passengers, who, more and more rarely as the 
evening waned, hastened homeward. Among these 
were two females, who now alone shared with Adrian 
the long and gloomy street into which he had entered. 
The moon was already bright in the heavens, and, as 
the women passed the cavalier with a light and quick 
step, the younger one turned back and regarded him by 
the clear light with an eager yet timid glance. 

“ Why dost thou tremble, my pretty one ? ” said her 
companion, who might have told some five-and-forty 
years, and whose garb and voice bespoke her of inferior 
rank to the younger female. “ The streets seem quiet 
enough now, and, the Virgin be praised! we are not 
so far from home either.” 

“ Oh ! Benedetta, it is he ! it is the young signor, — it 
is Adrian! ” 

“ That is fortunate,” said the nurse, for such was her 
condition, “ since they say he is as bold as a Northman; 
and as the Palazzo Colonna is not very far from hence, we 
shall be within reach of his aid should we want it, — that 


42 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


is to say, sweet one, if you will walk a little slower 
than you have yet done,” 

The young lady slackened her pace, and sighed. 

“He is certainly very handsome,” quoth the nurse; 
“ but thou must not think more of him : he is too far 
above thee for marriage, and for aught else thou art too 
honest and thy brother too proud — ” 

“And thou, Benedetta, art too quick with thy 
tongue. How canst thou talk thus, when thou knowest 
he hath never, since at least I was a mere child, even 
addressed me? Nay, he scarce knows of my very exist- 
ence. He, the Lord Adrian di Gastello, dream of the 
poor Irene ! the mere thought is madness ! ” 

“Then why,” said the nurse, briskly, “dost thou 
dream of him ? ” 

Her companion sighed again more deeply than at first. 

“Holy St. Catherine!” continued Benedetta, “if 
there were but one man in the world, I would die single 
ere I would think of him, until at least he had kissed 
my hand twice, and left it my own fault if it were not 
my lips instead.” 

The young lady still replied not. 

“ But how didst thou contrive to love him ? ” asked 
the nurse. “ Thou canst not have seen him very often : 
it is but some four or five weeks since his return 
to Home.” 

“ Oh , how dull art thou ! ” answered the fair Irene. 
“Have I not told thee again, and again, that I loved 
him six years ago ? ” 

“ When thou hadst told but thy tenth year, and a doll 
would have been thy most suitable lover! As I am a 
Christian, signora, thou hast made good use of thy time. ” 

“ And during his absence,” continued the girl, fondly 
yet sadly, “ did I not hear him sjjoken of, and was not 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


43 


the mere sound of his name like a love-gift that hade me 
remember? And when they praised him, have I not 
rejoiced; and when they blamed him, have I not 
resented; and when they said that bis lance was victo- 
rious in the tourney, did I not weep with pride; and 
when they whispered that his vows were welcome in 
the bower, wept I not as fervently with grief? Have 
not the six years of his absence been a dream, and was 
not his return a waking into light, — a morning of 
glory and the sun ? And I see him now in the church 
when he wots not of me, and on his happy steed as he 
passes by my lattice; and is not that enough of happi- 
ness for love ? ” 

“ But if he loves not thee ! ” 

“ Fool! I ask not that, — nay, I know not if I wish 
it. Perhaps I would rather dream of him such as I 
would have him than know him for what he is. He 
might be unkind, or ungenerous, or love me but little; 
rather would I not be loved at all than loved coldly, 
and eat away my heart by comparing it with his. I 
can love him now as something abstract, unreal, and 
divine; but what would be my shame, my grief, if I 
were to find him less than I have imagined! Then, 
indeed, my life would have been wasted; then, indeed, 
the beauty of the earth would be gone ! ” 

The good nurse was not very capable of sympathizing 
with sentiments like these. Even had their characters 
been more alike, their disparity of age would have ren- 
dered such sympathy impossible. What but youth 
can echo back the soul of youth, — all the music of its 
wild vanities and romantic ^ follies ? The good nurse 
did not sympathize with the sentiments of her young 
lady, but she sympathized with the deep earnestness 
with which they were expressed. She thought it won- 


44 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


drous silly, but wondrous moving; she wiped her eyes 
with the corner of her veil, and hoped in her secret 
heart that her young charge would soon get a real hus- 
band to put such unsubstantial fantasies out of her 
head. There was a short pause in their conversation, 
when, just where two streets crossed one another, there 
was heard a loud noise of laughing voices and trampling 
feet. Torches were seen on high, affronting tjhe pale 
light of the moon; and at a very short distance from 
the two females, in the cross street, advanced a company 
of seven or eight men, bearing, as seen by the red light 
of the torches, the formidable badge of the Orsini. 

Amidst the other disorders of the time, it was no 
unfrequent custom for the younger or more dissolute of 
the nobles, in small and armed companies, to parade 
the streets at night, seeking occasion for a licentious 
gallantry among the cowering citizens, or a skirmish 
at arms with some rival stragglers of their own order, 
Such a band had Irene and her companion now chanced 
to encounter. 

“Holy Mother!” cried Benedetta, turning pale and 
half running, “ what curse has befallen us ? How could 
we have been so foolish as to tarry so late at the Lady 
Nina’s! Bun, signora, run, or we shall fall into their 
hands ! ” 

But the advice of Benedetta came too late , — the 
fluttering garments of the women had been already 
descried: in a moment more they were surrounded by 
the marauders. A rude hand tore aside Benedetta’s 
veil, and at sight of features which, if time had not 
spared, it could never very materially injure, the rough 
aggressor cast the poor nurse against the wall with a 
curse, which was echoed by a loud laugh from his 
comrades. 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


45 


“ Thou hast a fine fortune in faces, Giuseppe! ” 

“ Yes; it was hut the other day that he seized on a 
girl of sixty. ” 

“And then, by way of improving her beauty, cut 
her across the face with his dagger, because she was not 
sixteen! ” 

“ Hush, fellows! whom have we here? ” said the chief 
of the party, a man richly dressed, and who, though 
bordering upon middle age, had only the more accus- 
tomed himself to the excesses of youth; as he spoke, 
he snatched the trembling Irene from the grasp of his 
followers. “Ho, there! the torches! Oh che bella 
faccia! what blushes, what eyes! — Hay, look not 
down, pretty one; thou needst not he ashamed to win 
the love of an Orsini. Yes; know the triumph thou 
hast achieved, — it is Martino di Porto who bids thee 
smile upon him! ” 

“For the blessed Mother^s sake, release me! Nay, 
sir, this must not he: I am not unfriended, — this 
insult shall not pass ! ” 

“ Hark to her silver chiding; it is better than my 
best hound’s bay! This adventure is worth a month’s 
watching. What! will you not come? Festive, — 
shrieks, too! — Francesco, Pietro, ye are the gentlest of 
the band. Wrap her veil around her, muffle this music! 
So! bear her before me to the palace, and to-morrow, 
sweet one, thou shalt go home with a basket of florins, 
which thou mayst say thou hast bought at market. ” 

But Irene’s shrieks, Irene’s struggles, had already 
brought succor to her side; and as Adrian approached 
the spot, the nurse flung herself on her knees before 
him. 

“ Oh, sweet signor, for Christ’s grace, save us, deliver 
my young mistress, — her friends love you well! Wo 


46 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


are all for the Colonna, my lord; yes, indeed, all for the 
Colonna! Save the kin of your own clients, gracious 
signor! ” 

“ It is enough that she is a woman answered Adrian ; 
adding, between his teeth, “ and that an Orsini is her 
assailant.” He strode haughtily into the thickest of 
the group; the servitors laid hands on their swords, 
but gave way before him as they recognized his person : 
he reached the two men who had already seized Irene ; 
in one moment he struck the foremost to the ground, in 
another he had passed his left arm round the light and 
slender form of the maiden, and stood confronting the 
Orsini with his drawn blade, which, however, he pointed 
to the ground. 

“For shame, my lord, for shame! ” said he, indig- 
nantly. “ Will you force Home to rise to a man 
against our order? Vex not too far the lion, chained 
though he be; war against us if ye will! draw your 
blades upon men , though they he of your own race and 
speak your own tongue : but if ye would sleep at nights 
and not dread the avenger’s gripe, if ye would walk 
the market-place secure, wrong not a Eoman woman! 
Yes, the very walls around us preach to you the pun- 
ishment of such a deed : for that offence fell the Tar- 
quins, for that offence were swept away the Decemvirs; 
for that offence, if ye rush upon it, the blood of your 
whole house may flow like water. Cease, then, my 
lord, from this mad attempt, so unworthy your great 
name; cease, and thank even a Colonna that he has 
come between you and a moment’s frenzy! ” 

So noble, so lofty were the air and gesture of Adrian, 
as he thus spoke, that even the rude servitors felt a 
thrill of approbation and remorse. Not so Martino di 
Porto. He had been struck with the beauty of the 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


47 


prey thus suddenly snatched from him; he had been 
accustomed to long outrage and to long impunity; the 
very sight, the very voice, of a Colonna was a blight 
to his eye and a discord to his ear: what, then, when a 
Colonna interfered with his lusts and rebuked his 
vices ? 

“Pedant! ” he cried with quivering lips, “prate not 
to me of thy vain legends and gossip’s tales! Think not 
to snatch from me my possession in another, when thine 
own life is in my hands. Unhand the maiden; throw 
down thy sword; return home without further parley, 
or, by my faith, and the blades of my followers (look at 
them well!), thou diest! ” 

“ Signor,” said Adrian, calmly, yet while he spoke he 
retreated gradually with his fair burden towards the 
neighboring wall, so as at least to leave only his front 
exposed to those fearful odds, “ thou wilt not so misuse 
the present chances, and wrong thyself in men’s mouths, 
as to attack with eight swords even thy hereditary foe, 
thus cumbered, too, as he is. But — nay, hold! — if 
thou art so disposed, bethink thee well, one cry of my 
voice would soon turn the odds against thee. Thou art 
now in the quarter of my tribe ; thou art surrounded by 
the habitations of the Colonna: yon palace swarms 
with men who sleep not, save with harness on their 
backs, — men whom my voice can reach even now, hut 
from whom, if they once taste of blood, it could not 
save thee! ” 

“He speaks true, noble lord,” said one of the hand: 
“ we have wandered too far out of our heat ; we are in 
their very den : the palace of old Stephen Colonna is 
within call; and, to my knowledge,” added he, in a 
whisper, “eighteen fresh men-at-arms! — ay, and 
Northmen too — marched through its gates this day.” 


48 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ Were there eight hundred men at arm’s length,” 
answered Martino, furiously, “ I would not be thus 
bearded amidst mine own train! Away with yon 
woman! To the attack! to the attack! ” 

Thus saying, he made a desperate lunge at Adrian, 
who, having kept his eye cautiously on the movements 
of his enemy, was not unprepared for the assault. As 
he put aside the blade with his own , he shouted with a 
loud voice , “ Colonna ! to the rescue , Colonna ! ” 

Nor had it been without an ulterior object that the 
acute and self-controlling mind of Adrian had hitherto 
sought to prolong the parley. Even as he first ad- 
dressed Orsini, he had perceived, by the moonlight, the 
glitter of armor upon two men advancing from the far 
end of the street, and judged at once, by the neighbor- 
hood, that they must be among the mercenaries of the 
Colonna. 

Gently he suffered the form of Irene, which now 
— for she had swooned with the terror — pressed too 
heavily upon him, to slide from his left arm, and stand- 
ing over her form, while sheltered from behind by the 
wall which he had so warily gained, he contented him- 
self with parrying the blows- hastily aimed at him, 
without attempting to retaliate. Few of the Eomans, 
however accustomed to such desultory warfare, were 
then well and dexterously practised in the use of arms ; 
and the science Adrian had acquired in the schools of 
the martial North, befriended him now, even against 
such odds. It is true, indeed, that the followers of 
Orsini did not share the fury of their lord; partly 
afraid of the consequence to themselves should the blood 
of so high-born a signor be spilled by their hands, partly 
embarrassed with the apprehension that they should see 
themselves suddenly beset with the ruthless hirelings 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TKIBUNES. 


49 


so close within hearing, they struck hut aimless and 
random blows, looking every moment behind and aside, 
and rather prepared for flight than slaughter. Echoing 
the cry of “ Colonna,” poor Benedetta fled at the first 
clash of swords. She ran down the dreary street still 
shrieking that cry, and passed the very portals of 
Stephen’s palace (where some grim forms yet loitered) 
without arresting her steps there, so great were her 
confusion and terror. 

Meanwhile the two armed men whom Adrian had 
descried proceeded leisurely up the street. The one 
was of a rude and common mould, his arms and his 
A complexion testified his calling and race; and by the 
great respect he paid to his companion, it was evident 
' that that companion was no native of Italy: for the 
brigands of the North, while they served the vices of 
the Southern, scarce affected to disguise their contempt 
for his cowardice. 

The companion of the brigand was a man of a martial 
yet easy air. He wore no helmet, but a cap of crimson 
velvet, set off with a white plume; on his mantle or 
surcoat, which was of scarlet, was wrought a broad white 
cross, both at back and breast; and so brilliant was the 
polish of his corselet that, as from time to time the 
mantle waved aside and exposed it to the moonbeams, 
it glittered like light itself. 

" Nay, Rodolf,” said he, " if thou hast so good a lot of 
it here with that hoary schemer heaven forbid that I 
should wish to draw thee back again to our merry band. 
But tell me, — this Bienzi, thinkest thou he has any 
solid and formidable power 1 ” 

“Pshaw! noble chieftain, not a whit of it. He 
pleases the mob; but as for the nobles, they laugh at 
him; and as for the soldiers, he has no money! ” 

VOL. I. — 4 


50 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


He pleases the mob, then ! ” 

“ Ay, that doth he ; and when he speaks aloud to 
them, all the roar of Eome is hushed.” 

“Humph! when the nobles are hated and soldiers 
are bought, a mob may in any hour become the master. 
An honest people and a weak mob, a corrupt people 
and a strong mob,” said the other, rather to himself 
than to his comrade, and scarce, perhaps, conscious of 
the eternal truth of his aphorism. “ He is no mere 
brawler, this Eienzi, I suspect, — I must see to it. 
Hark! what noise is that? By the Holy Sepulchre, it 
is the ring of our ,own metal ! ” 

“ And that cry, — ‘ a Colonna! ’ ” exclaimed Rodolf. 
“ Pardon me, master, I must away to the rescue ! ” 

“ Ay, it is the duty of thy hire; run, — yet stay, 1 
will accompany thee, gratis for once, and from pure 
passion for mischief. By this hand, there is no music 
like clashing steel ! ” 

Still Adrian continued gallantly and unwounded to 
defend himself, though his arm now grew tired, his 
breath wellnigh spent, and his eyes began to wink and 
reel beneath the glare of the tossing torches. Orsini 
himself, exhausted by his fury, had paused for an 
instant, fronting his foe with a heaving breast and 
savage looks, when suddenly his followers exclaimed, 
“Fly! fly! — the bandits approach, — we are sur- 
rounded ; ” and two of the survivors, without further 
parley, took fairly to their heels. The other five 
remained irresolute, and waiting but the command of 
their master, when he of the white plume whom I 
have just described thrust himself into the mUee. 

“ What! gentles,” said he, “ have ye finished already? 
Hay, let us not mar the sport; begin again, I beseech 
you. What are the odds? Ho! six to one! — nay, no 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 51 


wonder that ye have waited for fairer play. See, we 
two will take the weaker side. Now, then, let us 
begin again.” 

“Insolent! ” cried the Orsini. “ Knowest thou him 
whom thou addressest thus arrogantly ? I am Martino 
di Porto. Who art thou ? ” 

“ Walter de Montreal, gentleman of Provence and 
Knight of St. John,” answered the other, carelessly. 

At that redoubted name — the name of one of the 
boldest warriors and of the most accomplished free- 
booter of his time — even Martino’s cheek grew pale, 
and his followers uttered a cry of terror. 

“ And this, my comrade,” continued the knight, “ for 
we may as well complete the introduction, is probably 
better known to you than I am, gentles of Kome; and 
you doubtless recognize in him Rodolf of Saxony, a 
brave man and a true, where he is properly paid for 
his services.” 

“Signor,” said Adrian to his enemy, who, aghast and 
dumb, remained staring vacantly at the two new-comers, 
“ you are now in my power. See, our own people, too, 
are approaching! ” 

And, indeed, from the palace of Stephen Colonna 
torches began to blaze, and armed men were seen rapidly 
advancing to the spot. 

“Go home in peace, and if to-morrow, or any day 
more suitable to thee, thou wilt meet me alone, and 
lance to lance, as is the wont of the knights of the 
empire, or with band to band, and man for man, as is 
rather the Roman custom, I will not fail thee, — there 
is my gage.” 

“Nobly spoken,” said Montreal; “and if ye choose 
the latter, by your leave, I will be one of the party.” 

Martino answered not; he took up the glove, thrust 


52 RIENZI, THE LAST OE THE TRIBUNES. 

it in his bosom, and strode hastily away; only, when he 
had gone some paces down the street, he turned back, 
and shaking his clenched hand at Adrian, exclaimed, 
in a voice trembling with impotent rage, “ Faithful to 
death! ” 

The words made one of the mottoes of the Orsini; 
and, whatever its earlier signification, had long passed 
into a current proverb, to signify their hatred to the 
Colonna. 

Adrian, now engaged in raising and attempting to 
revive Irene, who was still insensible, disdainfully 
left it to Montreal to reply. 

“ I doubt not, signor,” said the latter, coolly, “ that 
thou wilt be faithful to death; for death, God wot, is 
the only contract which men, however ingenious, are 
unable to break or evade.” 

“Pardon me, gentle knight,” said Adrian, looking 
up from his charge, “ if I do not yet give myself wholly 
to gratitude. I have learned enough of knighthood 
to feel thou wilt acknowledge that my first duty is 
here — ” 

“ Oh, a lady, then, was the cause of the quarrel! I 
need not ask who was in the right, when a man brings 
to the rivalry such odds as yon caitiff. ” 

“Thou mistakest a little, sir knight, — it is but a 
lamb I have rescued from the wolf.” 

“ For thy own table ! Be it so ! ” returned the knight, 

gayiy. 

Adrian smiled gravely, and shook his head in denial. 
In truth, he was somewhat embarrassed by his situa- 
tion. Though habitually gallant, he was not willing 
to expose to misconstruction the disinterestedness of his 
late conduct, and (for it was his policy to conciliate 
popularity) to sully the credit which his bravery would 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


53 


give him among the citizens, by conveying Irene (whose 
beauty, too, as yet, he had scarcely noted) to his own 
dwelling; and yet, in her present situation, there was 
no alternative. She evinced no sign of life. He knew 
not her home, nor parentage. Benedetta had vanished. 
He could not leave her in the streets; he could not 
resign her to the care of another; and as she lay now 
upon his breast, he felt her already endeared to him, by 
that sense of protection which is so grateful to the 
human heart. He briefly, therefore, explained to those 
now gathered round him his present situation, and the 
cause of the past conflict, and bade the torch-bearers 
precede him to his home. 

"You, sir knight,” added he, turning to Montreal, 
" if not already more pleasantly lodged, will, I trust, 
deign to be my guest.” 

“Thanks, signor,” answered Montreal, maliciously; 
“but I, also, perhaps, have my own affairs to watch 
over. Adieu! I shall seek you at the earliest occasion. 
Eair night, and gentle dreams ! 

‘ Robers Bertrams qui estoit tors, 

Mais h. ceval estoit mult fors. 

Cil avoit o lui grans effors; 

Multi ot ’homes per lui mors.’ ” ^ 

And, muttering this rugged chant from the old “ Roman 
de Rou,” the Provencal, followed by Rodolf, pursued 
his way. 

The vast extent of Rome, and the thinness of its 
population, left many of the streets utterly deserted. 
The principal nobles were thus enabled to possess them- 
selves of a wide range of buildings, which they fortified, 

1 An ill-favored man, but a stout horseman, was Robert Ber- 
tram. Great deeds were his, and many a man died by his hand. 


54 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


partly against each other, partly against the people; 
their numerous relatives and clients lived around them, 
forming, as it were, petty courts and cities in them- 
selves. 

Almost opposite to the principal palace of the Colonna 
(occupied by his powerful kinsman, Stephen) was the 
mansion of Adrian. Heavily swung back the massive 
gates at his approach; he ascended the broad staircase, 
and bore his charge into an apartment which his tastes 
had decorated in a fashion not as yet common in that 
age. Ancient statues and busts were arranged around; 
the pictured arras of Lombardy decorated the walls and 
covered the massive seats. 

“What ho! Lights here, and wine!” cried the 
seneschal. 

“Leave us alone,” said Adrian, gazing passionately 
on the pale cheek of Irene, as he now, by the clear 
light, beheld all its beauty ; and a sweet yet burning 
hope crept into his heart. 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


55 


CHAPTER V. 

The Description of a Conspirator, and the Dawn of the Conspiracy. 

Alone, by a table covered with various papers, sat a 
man in the prime of life. The chamber was low and 
long; many antique and disfigured bas-reliefs and 
torsos were placed around the wall, interspersed here 
and there with the short sword and close casque, time- 
worn relics of the prowess of ancient Rome. Right 
above the table at which he sat, the moonlight streamed 
through a high and narrow casement, deep sunk in 
the massy wall. In a niche to the right of this win- 
dow, guarded by a sliding-door, which was now par- 
tially drawn aside, but which, by its solid substance, 
and the sheet of iron with which it was plated, testified 
how valuable, in the eyes of the owner, was the treasure 
it protected, were arranged some thirty or forty vol- 
umes, then deemed no inconsiderable library, and being 
for the most part the laborious copies in manuscript by 
the hand of the owner, from immortal originals. 

Leaning his cheek on his hand, his brow somewhat 
knit, his lip slightly compressed, that personage 
indulged in meditations' far other than the indolent 
dreams of scholars. As the high and still moonlight 
shone upon his countenance, it gave an additional and 
solemn dignity to features which were naturally of a 
grave and majestic cast. Thick and auburn hair, the 
color of which, not common to the Romans, was ascribed 
to his descent from the Teuton emperor, clustered in 


56 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TEIBUNES. 


large curls above a high and expansive forehead; and 
even the present thoughtful compression of the brow 
could not mar the aspect of latent power which it 
derived from that great breadth between the eyes, in 
which the Grecian sculptors of old so admirably con- 
veyed the expression of authority, and the silent energy 
of command. But his features were not cast in the 
Grecian, still less in the Teuton mould. The iron jaw, 
the aquiline nose, the somewhat sunken cheek, strik- 
ingly recalled the character of the hard Roman race, and 
might not inaptly have suggested to a painter a model 
for the younger Brutus. 

The marked outline of the face, and the short, firm 
upper lip, were not concealed by the beard and mus- 
tachios usually then worn; and in the faded portrait 
of the person now described, still extant at Rome, may 
be traced a certain resemblance to the popular pictures of 
Napoleon, — not, indeed, in the features, which are more 
stern and prominent in the portrait of the Roman, but 
in that peculiar expression of concentrated and tranquil 
power which so nearly realizes the ideal of intellectual 
majesty. Though still young, the personal advantages 
most peculiar to youth, — the bloom and glow, the 
rounded cheek in which care has not yet ploughed its 
lines, the full unsunken eye, and the slender delicacy of 
frame, — these were not the characteristics of that solitary 
student. And though considered by his contemporaries 
as eminently handsome, the judgment was probably 
formed less from the more vulgar claims to such distinc- 
tion than from the height of the stature, — an advantage at 
that time more esteemed than at present, — and that nobler 
order of beauty which cultivated genius and command- 
ing character usually stamp upon even homely features, 
— the more rare in an age so rugged. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 57 

The character of Rienzi (for the youth presented to 
the reader in the first chapter of this history is now 
again before him in maturer years) had acquired greater 
hardness and energy with each stepping-stone to power. 
There was a circumstance attendant on his birth which 
had probably exercised great and early influence on his 
ambition. Though his parents were in humble circum- 
stances and of lowly calling, his father was the natural 
son of the Emperor Henry VII. ; ^ and it was the pride 
of the parents that probably gave to Rienzi the unwonted 
advantages of education. This pride transmitted to him- 
self — his descent from royalty dinned into his ear, in- 
fused into his thoughts, from his cradle — made him, 
even in his earliest youth, deem himself the equal of the 
Roman signors, and half unconsciously aspire to be their 
superior. But as the literature of Rome was unfolded 
to his eager eye and ambitious heart, he became imbued 
with that pride of country which is nobler than the pride 
of birth ; and, save when stung by allusions to his ori- 
gin, he unaffectedly valued himself more on being a 
Roman plebeian than the descendant of a Teuton king. 
His brother’s death, and the vicissitudes he himself 
had already undergone, deepened the earnest and solemn 
qualities of his character ; and at length all the faculties 
of a very uncommon intellect were concentrated into one 
object, . — which borrowed from a mind strongly and 

1 De Sade supposes that the mother of Rienzi was the daughter 
of an illegitimate son of Henry VII., supporting his opinion from 
a MS. iu the Vatican. But, according to the contemporaneous 
biographer, Rienzi, in addressing Charles, King of Bohemia, claims 
the relationship from his father; “Di vostro legnaggio sono, — 
figlio di bastardo d’ Enrico imperatore,” etc, A more recent writer, 
il Padre Gabrini, cites an inscription in support of this descent: 
“ Nicolaus Tribunus . . . Laurentii Teutonici Eilius,” etc. 


58 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


mystically religious, as well as patriotic, a sacred 
aspect, and grew at once a duty and a passion. 

“Yes,” said Eienzi, breaking suddenly from his 
reverie, — “ yes, the day is at hand when Eome shall 
rise again from her ashes; Justice shall dethrone 
Oppression ; men shall walk safe in their ancient Forum. 
We will rouse from his forgotten tomb the indomitable 
soul of Cato ! There shall be a people once more in 
Rome ! And I — I shall be the instrument of that tri- 
umph, — the restorer of my race ! Mine shall be the first 
voice to swell the battle-cry of freedom; mine the first 
hand to rear her banner, — yes, from the height of my 
own soul as from a mountain, 1 see already rising the 
liberties and the grandeur of the New Rome; and on 
the corner-stone of the mighty fabric posterity shall 
read my name.” 

Uttering these lofty boasts, the whole person of the 
speaker seemed instinct with his ambition. He strode 
the gloomy chamber with light and rapid steps, as if 
on air; his breast heaved, his eyes glowed. He felt 
that love itself can scarcely bestow a rapture equal to 
that which is felt, in his first virgin enthusiasm, by a 
patriot who knows himself sincere. 

There was a slight knock at the door; and the ser- 
vitor, in the rich liveries worn by the pope’s officials,^ 
presented himself. 

“ Signor,” said he, “ my lord the Bishop of Orvietto 
is without.” 

“Ha! that is fortunate. Lights there! My lord, 
this is an honor which I can estimate better than 
express. ” 

“ Tut, tut, my good friend,” said the bishop, entering, 

^ Not the present hideous habiliments, which are said to have 
been the invention of Michael Angelo. 


KIENZI, THE LAST OE THE TRIBUNES. 


59 


and seating himself familiarly, — “ no ceremonies 
between the servants of the Church; and never, I ween 
well, had she greater need of true friends than now. 
These unholy tumults, these licentious contentions, in 
the very shrines and city of St. Peter, are sufficient to 
scandalize all Christendom.” 

“ And so will it he,” said Pienzi, “ until his Holiness 
himself shall be graciously persuaded to fix his resi- 
dence in the seat of his predecessors, and curb with a 
strong arm the excesses of the nobles. ” 

“Alas, man!” said the bishop, “thou knowest that 
these words are hut as wind ; for were the pope to fulfil 
thy wishes, and remove from Avignon to Pome, by the 
blood of St. Peter! he would not curb the nobles, but 
the nobles would curb him. Thou knowest well that 
until his blessed predecessor, of pious memory, con- 
ceived the wise design of escaping to Avignon, the 
Father of the Christian world was hut like many other 
fathers in their old age, controlled and guarded by his 
rebellious children. Pecollectest thou not how the 
noble Boniface himself, a man of great heart, and nerves 
of iron, was kept in thraldom by the ancestors of the 
Orsini, — his entrances and exits made but at their will, 
— so that, like a caged eagle, he beat himself against his 
bars and died? Verily, thou talkest of the memories 
of Pome, — these are not the memories that are very 
attractive to popes.” 

“Well,” said Pienzi, laughing gently, and drawing 
his seat nearer to the bishop’s, “ my lord has certainly 
the best of the argument at present ; and I must own 
that, strong, licentious, and unhallowed as the order of 
nobility was then, it is yet more so now.” 

“Even I,” rejoined Paimond, coloring as he spoke, 
“ though vicar of the pope , and representative of his 


60 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

spiritual authority, was, but three days ago, subjected to 
a coarse affront from that very Stephen Colonna who has 
ever received such favor and tenderness from the Holy 
See. His servitors jostled mine in the open streets, 
and I myself — I, the delegate of the sire of kings — 
was forced to draw aside to the wall, and wait until 
the hoary insolent swept by. Nor were blaspheming 
words wanting to complete the insult. ‘ Pardon, lord 
bishop,’ said he, as he passed me; ‘ but this world, 
thou knowest, must necessarily take precedence of the 
other.’ ” 

“Dared he so high? ” said Rienzi, shading his face 
with his hand, as a very peculiar smile — scarcely itself 
joyous, though it made others gay, and which completely 
changed the character of his face, naturally grave even 
to sternness — played round his lips. “ Then it is time 
for thee, holy father, as for us, to — ” 

“ To what? ” interrupted the bishop, quickly. " Can 
we effect aught? Dismiss thy enthusiastic dreamings, 
— descend to the real earth, look soberly around us. 
Against men so powerful , what can we do ? ” 

“ My lord,” answered Rienzi, gravely, “ it is the mis- 
fortune of signors of your rank never to know the 
people, or the accurate signs of the time. As those who 
pass over the heights of mountains see the clouds sweep 
below, veiling the plains and valleys from their gaze, 
while they, only a little above the level, survey the 
movements and the homes of men; even so from your 
lofty eminence ye behold but the indistinct and sullen 
vapors, while from my humble station I see the prepa- 
rations of the shepherds to shelter themselves and 
herds from the storm which those clouds betoken. 
Despair not, my lord ; endurance goes but to a certain 
limit, — to that limit it is already stretched; Rome 


IIIENZI,,THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


61 


waits but the occasion (it will soon come, but not sud- 
denly) to rise simultaneously against her oppressors. ” 

The great secret of eloquence is to be in earnest; 
the great secret of Eienzi's eloquence was in the mighti- 
ness of his enthusiasm. He never spoke as one who 
doubted of success. Perhaps, like most men who 
undertake high and great actions, he himself was never 
thoroughly aware of the obstacles in his way. He saw 
the end, bright and clear, and overleaped, in the vision 
of his soul, the crosses and the length of the path; thus 
the deep convictions of his own mind stamped them- 
selves irresistibly upon others. He seemed less to 
promise than to prophesy. 

The Bishop of Orvietto, not over-wise, yet a man of 
cool temperament and much worldly experience, was 
forcibly impressed by the energy of his companion; 
perhaps, indeed, the more so, inasmuch as his own pride 
and his own passions were also enlisted against the 
arrogance and license of the nobles. He paused ere he 
replied to Eienzi. 

“But is it,’’ he asked at length, “ only the plebeians 
who will rise 1 Thou knowest how they are caitiff and 
uncertain.” 

“My lord,” answered Eienzi, “judge, by one fact, 
how strongly I am surrounded by friends of no common 
class: thou knowest how loudly I speak against the 
nobles, — I cite them by their name ; I beard the Savelli, 
the Orsini, the Colonna, in their very hearing. Think- 
est thou that they forgive me? Thinkest thou that, were 
only the plebeians my safeguard and my favorers, they 
would not seize me by open force, — that I had not 
long ere this found a gag in their dungeons, or been 
swallowed up in the eternal dumbness of the grave? 
Observe,” continued he, as, reading the vicar’s counte- 


62 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TKIBUNES. 


nance, he perceived the impression he had made, — 
“ observe that throughout the whole world a great revo- 
lution has begun. The barbaric darkness of centuries 
has been broken; the knowledge which made men as 
demigods in the past time has been called from her 
urn; a Power, subtler than brute force and mightier 
than armed men, is at work ; we have begun once more 
to do homage to the Royalty of Mind. Yes, that same 
Power which, a few years ago, crowned Petrarch in the 
Capitol, when it witnessed, after the silence of twelve 
centuries, the glories of a triumph; which heaped 
upon a man of obscure birth and unknown in arms the 
same honors given of old to emperors and the vanquish- 
ers qf kings; which united in one act of homage even 
the rival houses of Colonna and Orsini; which made 
the haughtiest patricians emulous to bear the train, to 
touch but the purple robe, of the son of the Florentine 
plebeian ; which still draws the eyes of Europe to the 
lowly cottage of Vaucluse; which gives to the hum- 
ble student the all-acknowledged license to admonish 
tyrants, and approach with haughty prayers even the 
father of the Church, — yes, that same Power, which, 
working silently throughout Italy, murmurs under the 
solid base of the Venetian oligarchy; ^ which, beyond the 
Alps, has awakened into visible and sudden life in 
Spain, in Germany, in Flanders; and which, even in 
that barbarous Isle, conquered by the Norman sword, 
ruled by the bravest of living kings has roused a spirit 

1 It was about eight years afterwards that the long-smothered 
hate of the Venetian people to that wisest and most vigilant of all 
oligarchies, the Sparta of Italy, broke out in the conspiracy under 
Marino Faliero. 

1 Edward III., in whose reign opinions far more popular than 
those of the following century began to work. The civil wars 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TEIBUNES.y 63 

Norman cannot break, — kings to rule over must rule 
by, — yes, that same Power is everywhere abroad: it 
speaks, it conquers in the voice even of him who is 
before you; it unites in his cause all on whom but one 
glimmering of light has burst, all in whom one gener- 
ous desire can be kindled! Know, lord vicar, that 
there is not a man in Pome, save our oppressors them- 
selves, — not a man who has learned one syllable of our 
ancient tongue, — ^ whose heart and sword are not with 
me. The peaceful cultivators of letters; the proud 
nobles of the second order; the rising race, wiser than 
their slothful sires; above all, my lord, the humbler 
ministers of religion, priests and monks, whom luxury 
hath not blinded, pomp hath not deafened, to the 
monstrous outrage to Christianity daily and nightly 
perpetrated in the Christian capital, — ^ these, all these, 
are linked with the merchant and the artisan in one 
indissoluble bond, waiting but the signal to fall or to 
conquer, to live freemen or to die martyrs, with Kienzi 
and their country ! ” 

“ Sayest thou so in truth,” said the bishop, startled 
and half rising. “ Prove but thy words, and thou shalt 
not find the ministers of God are less eager than their 
lay brethren for the happiness of men.” 

“What I say,” rejoined Kienzi, in a cooler tone, 
“ that can I show ; but I may only prove it to those 
who will be with us.” 

“Fear me not,” answered' Raimond, “I know well 
the secret mind of his Holiness, whose delegate and 
representative I am; and could he see but the legiti- 

threw back the action into the blood. It was indeed an age 
throughout the world which put forth abundant blossoms, but 
crude and unripened fruit, — a singular leap, followed by as singu- 
lar a pause. 


64 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


mate and natural limit set to the power of the patricians, 
who in their arrogance have set at naught the authority 
of the Church itself, be "^ure that he would smile on the 
hand that drew the line. Nay, so certain of this am I, 
that if ye succeed, I, his responsible but unworthy vicar, 
will myself sanction the success. But beware of crude 
attempts ; the Church must not be weakened by linking 
itself to failure.” 

“Bight, my lord,” answered Bienzi; “and in this 
the policy of religion is that of freedom. Judge of my 
prudence by my long delay. He who can see all 
around him impatient — himself not less so — and yet 
suppress the signal and bide the hour, is not likely to 
lose his cause by rashness.” 

“ More, then, of this anon,” said the bishop, reset- 
tling himself in his seat. “ As thy plans mature, fear 
not to communicate with me. Believe that Borne has 
no firmer friend than he who, ordained to preserve order, 
finds himself impotent against aggression. Meanwhile, 
to the object of my present visit, which links itself in 
some measure, perhaps, with the topics on which we 
have conversed. . . . Thou knowest that when his 
Holiness intrusted thee with thy present office, he bade 
thee also announce his beneficent intention of granting 
a general Jubilee at Borne for the year 1350, — a most 
admirable design for two reasons sufficiently apparent 
to thyself: first, that every Christian soul that may 
undertake the pilgrimage to Borne on that occasion may 
thus obtain a general remission of sins; and secondly, 
because, to speak carnally, the concourse of pilgrims so 
assembled, usually, by the donations and offerings their 
piety suggests, very materially add to the revenues of the 
Holy See, — at this time, by the way, in no very flour- 
ishing condition. This thou knowest, dear Bienzi.” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 65 

E-ienzi bowed his head in assent, and the prelate 
continued, — 

“ Well, it is with the greatest grief that his Holiness 
perceives that his pious intentions are likely to he 
frustrated; for so fierce and numerous are now the 
brigands in the public approaches to Koine, that verily 
the boldest pilgrim may tremble a little to undertake 
the journey; and those who do so venture will' prob- 
ably be composed of the poorest of the Christian com- 
munity, — men who, bringing with them neither gold 
nor silver nor precious offerings, will have little to fear 
from the rapacity of the brigands. Hence arise two 
consequences: on the one hand, the rich — whom 
Heaven knows, and the Gospel has indeed expressly 
declared, have the most need of a remission of sins — 
will be deprived of this glorious occasion for absolution ; 
and, on the other hand, the coffers of the Church will 
be impiously defrauded of that wealth which it would 
otherwise doubtless obtain from the zeal of her 
children.” 

“ Nothing can be more logically manifest, my lord,” 
said Kienzi. 

The vicar continued: “Now, in letters received five 
days since from his Holiness, he bade me expose these 
fearful consequences to Christianity to the various 
patricians who are legitimately fiefs of the Church, and 
command their resolute combination against the maraud- 
ers of the road. With these have I conferred, and 
vainly. ” 

“ For by the aid and from the troops of those very 
brigands, these patricians have fortified their palaces 
against each other,” added Kienzi. 

“Exactly for that reason,” rejoined the bishop, . 
“Nay, Stephen Colonna himself had the audacity to 

VOL. I. — 5 


66 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


confess it. Utterly unmoved by the loss to so many 
precious souls, and, I may add, to the papal treasury, 
which ought to be little less dear to right-discerning 
men, they refuse to advance a step against the bandits. 
Now, then, hearken the second mandate of his Holi- 
ness: ‘ Failing the nobles,’ saith he, in his prophetic 
sagacity, ‘ confer with Cola di Rienzi. He is a bold 
man and a pious, and, thou tellest me, of great weight 
with the people; and say to him that if his wit can 
devise the method for extirpating these sons of Belial, 
and rendering a safe passage along the public ways, 
largely, indeed, will he merit at our hands, — lasting 
will be the gratitude we shall owe to him; and what- 
ever succor thou and the servants of our See can render 
to him, let it not be stinted.” 

“Said his Holiness thus?” exclaimed Rienzi. “I 
ask no more, — the gratitude is mine that he, hath 
thought thus of his servant, and intrusted me with this 
charge; at once I accept it, at once I pledge myself 
to success. Let us, my lord, let us, then, clearly under- 
stand the limits ordained to my discretion. To curb the 
^brigands without the walls, I must have authority over 
those within. If I undertake, at peril of my life, to 
clear all the avenues to Rome of the robbers who now 
infest it, shall I have full license for conduct bold, 
peremptory, and severe? ” 

“ Such conduct the very nature of the charge demands,” 
replied Raimond. 

“ Ay , even though it be exercised against the arch 
offenders, against the supporters of the brigands, against 
the haughtiest of the nobles themselves ? ” 

The bishop paused, and looked hard in the face of 
the speaker. “ I repeat,” said he at length, sinking 
his voice and with a significant tone, “ in these bold 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 67 

attempts success is the sole sanction. Succeed, and 
we will excuse thee all , even to the — ” 

“Death of a Colonna or an Orsini, should justice 
demand it; and provided it be according to the law, 
and only incurred by the violation of the law ! ” added 
Rienzi, firmly. 

The bishop did not reply in words, hut a slight 
motion of his head was sufficient answer to Rienzi. 

“My lord,” said he, “from this time, then, all is 
well; I date the revolution — the restoration of order, 
of the state — from this hour, this very conference. 
Till now, knowing that justice must never wink upon 
great offenders, I had hesitated, through fear lest thou 
and his Holiness might deem it severity, and blame 
him who replaces the law, because he smites the vio- 
lators of law. Now I judge ye more rightly Your 
hand, my lord.” 

The bishop extended his hand; Rienzi grasped it 
firmly, and then raised it respectfully to his lips. Both 
felt that the compact was sealed. 

This conference, so long in recital, was short in the 
reality; but its object was already finished, and the 
bishop rose to depart. The outer portal of the house 
was opened, the numerous servitors of the bishop held 
on high their torches, and he had just turned from 
Rienzi, who had attended him to the gate, when a 
female passed hastily through the prelate’s train, and, 
starting as she beheld Rienzi, flung herself at his feet. 
“Oh, hasten, sir! hasten for the love of God, hasten, 
or the young signora is lost forever ! ” 

“ The signora ! Heaven and earth, Benedetta, of 
whom do you speak ? — of my sister, of Irene ? Is she 
not within ? ” 

“ Oh, sir, the Orsini, the Orsini! ” 


68 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

“ What of them! Speak, woman! ” 

Here, breathlessly and with many a break, Benedetta 
recounted to Bienzi, in whom the reader has already 
recognized the brother of Irene , so far of the adventure 
with Martino di Porto as she had witnessed; of the 
termination and result of the contest she knew naught. 

Rienzi listened in silence ; hut the deadly paleness of 
his countenance and the writhing of the nether lip 
testified the emotions to which he gave no audible vent. 

“You hear, my lord bishop, you hear,” said he, 
when Benedetta had concluded; and turning to the 
bishop, whose departure the narrative had delayed, — 
“ you hear to what outrage the citizens of Rome are 
subjected. My hat and sword! instantly! My lord, 
forgive my abruptness.” 

“ Whither art thou bent, then ? ” asked Raimond. 

“Whither, whither? Ay, I forgot, my lord, you 
have no sister. Perhaps, too, you had no brother? 
No, no; one victim at least I will live to save. 
Whither, you ask me? To the palace of Martino di 
Porto.” 

“ To an Orsini alone ^ and for justice ? ” 

“ Alone, and for justice? No! ” shouted Rienzi, in 
a loud voice, as he seized his sword, now brought to 
him by one of his servants, and rushed from the house; 
“ but one man is sufficient for revenge ! ” 

The bishop paused for a moment’s deliberation. 
“ He must not be lost,” muttered he, “ as he well may 
be, if exposed thus solitary to the wolf’s rage. What, 
ho!” he cried aloud; “advance the torches! quick, 
quick ! We ourself — we, the Vicar of the Pope — will 
see to this. Calm yourselves, good people ; your young 
signora shall be restored. On ! to the palace of Martino 
di Porto! ” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


69 


CHAPTER VI. 

Irene in the Palace of Adrian di Gastello. 

As the Cyprian gazed on the image in which he had 
embodied a youth of dreams, what time the living 
hues flushed slowly beneath the marble, so gazed the 
young and passionate Adrian upon the form reclined 
before him, reawakening gradually to life. And if 
the beauty of that face were not of the loftiest or the 
most dazzling order, if its soft and quiet character might 
be outshone by many of loveliness less really perfect, 
yet never was there a countenance that to some eyes 
would have seemed more charming, and never one in 
which more eloquently was wrought that ineffable and 
virgin expression which Italian art seeks for in its 
models, — in which modesty is the outward, and tender- 
ness the latent expression; the bloom of youth, both of 
form and heart, ere the first frail and delicate freshness 
of either is brushed away, and when even love itself, 
the only unquiet visitant that should be known at such 
an age, is but' a sentiment, and not a passion! 

“Benedetta,” murmured Irene, at length opening her 
eyes unconsciously upon him who knelt beside her, — 
eyes of that uncertain, that most liquid hue, on which 
you might gaze for years and never learn the secret of 
the color, so changed it with the dilating pupil, 
darkening in the shade and brightening into azure in 
the light, — “ Benedetta,” said Irene, “ where art thou? 
Oh, Benedetta! I have had such a dream.” 

f 


70 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ And I, too, such a vision! ” thought Adrian. . 

“Where am I?” cried Irene, rising from the couch. 
“This room, these hangings — Holy Virgin! do I 
dream still? and you? Heavens! it is the Lord 
Adrian di Gastello!” 

“ Is that a name thou hast been taught to fear ? ” 
said Adrian; “ if so, I will forswear it.” 

If Irene now blushed deeply, it was not in that wild 
delight with which her romantic heart might have fore- 
told that she would listen to the first words of homage 
from Adrian di Gastello. Bewildered and confused, 
terrified at the strangeness of the place, and shrinking 
even from the thought of finding herself alone with one 
who for years had been present to her fancies, alarm 
and distress were the emotions she felt the most, and 
which most were impressed upon her speaking counte- 
nance; and as Adrian now drew nearer to her, despite 
the gentleness of his voice and the respect of his looks, 
her fears, not the less strong that they were vague, 
increased upon her; she retreated to the further end of 
the room, looked wildly round her, and then, covering 
her face with her hands, burst into a paroxysm of grief. 

Moved himself by these tears, and divining her 
thoughts, Adrian forgot for a moment all the more 
daring wishes he had formed. 

“Fear not, sweet lady,” said he, earnestly; “recol- 
lect thyself, I beseech thee. No peril, no evil, can 
reach thee here : it was this hand that saved thee from 
the outrage of the Orsini, this roof is but the shelter of 
a friend! Tell me, then, fair wonder, thy name and 
residence, and I will summon my servitors, and guard 
thee to thy home at once.” ' 

Perhaps the relief of tears, even more than Adrian’s 
words, restored Irene to herself, and enabled her to 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


71 


comprehend her novel situation; and as her senses, thus 
cleared, told her what she owed to him whom her 
dreams had so long imaged as the ideal of all excellence, 
she recovered her self-possession, and uttered her thanks 
with a grace not the less winning if it still partook of 
embarrassment. 

“ Thank me not,” answered Adrian, passionately. “ I 
have touched thy hand, — I am repaid. Repaid! nay, 
all gratitude, all homage is for me to render! ” 

Blushing again, but with far different emotions than 
before, Irene, after a momentary pause, replied; “Yet, 
my lord, I must consider it a debt the more weighty 
that you speak of it so lightly. And now complete 
the obligation. I do not see my companion, — suffer 
her to accompany me home; it is hut a short way 
hence.” 

“Blessed, then, is the air that 1 have breathed so 
unconsciously ! ” said Adrian. “ But thy companion, 
dear lady, is not here. She fled, I imagine, in the con- 
fusion of the conflict; and, not knowing thy name, nor 
being able in thy then state to learn it from thy lips, 
it was my happy necessity to convey thee hither. But 
I will be thy companion. Nay, why that timid glance? 
my people, also, shall attend us.” 

“My thanks, noble lord, are of little worth; my 
brother, who is not unknown to thee, will thank thee 
more fittingly. May I depart?” and Irene, as she 
spoke, was already at the door. 

“Art thou so eager to leave me?’’ answered Adrian, 
sadl3^ “ Alas! when thou hast departed from my eyes, 
it will seem as if the moon had left the night! But it 
is happiness to obey thy wishes, even though they tear 
thee from me.” 

A slight smile parted Irene’s lips, and Adrian’s heart 


72 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


beat audibly to himself, as he drew from that smile 
and those downcast eyes no unfavorable omen. 

Reluctantly and slowly he turned towards the door, 
and summoned his attendants. “ But,” said he, as they 
stood on the lofty staircase, “ thou sayest, sweet lady, 
that thy brother’s name is not unknown to me. 
Heaven grant that he be, indeed, a friend of the 
Colonna! ” 

“His boast,” answered Irene, evasively, “the boast 
of Cola di Rienzi, is, to be a friend to the friends of 
Rome.” • 

“ Holy Virgin of Ara Coeli ! is thy brother that 
extraordinary man? ” exclaimed Adrian, as he foresaw, 
at the mention of that name, a barrier to his sudden 
passion. “ Alas! in a Colonna, in a noble, he will see 
no merit; even though thy fortunate deliverer, sweet 
maiden, sought to be his early friend! ” 

“ Thou wrongest him much, my lord,” returned Irene, 
warmly ; “ he is a man above all others to sympathize 
with thy generous valor, even had it been exerted in 
defence of the humblest woman in Rome, — how much 
more, then, when in protection of his sister! ” 

“The times are indeed diseased,” answered Adrian, 
thoughtfully, as they now found themselves in the 
open street, “ when men who alike mourn for the woes 
of their country are yet suspicious of each other; when 
to be a patrician is to be regarded as an enemy to the 
people; when to be termed the friend of the people is to 
be considered a foe to the patricians : but come what may, 
oh, let me hope, dear lady, that no doubts, no divisions, 
shall banish from thy breast one gentle memory of me ! ” 
“Ah, little, little do you know me!” began Irene, 
and stopped suddenly short. 

“Speak! speak again! — of what music has this 


HIENZI, THE LAST OE THE TRIBUNES. 


73 


envious silence deprived my soul ! Thou wilt not, then, 
forget me? And,” continued Adrian, “we shall meet 
again? It is to Rienzi’s house we are hound now; 
to-morrow I shall visit my old companion, — to-morrow 
I shall see thee. Will it not be so? ” 

In Irene’s silence was her answer. 

“ And as thou hast told me thy brother’s name, make 
it sweet to my ear, and add to it thine own.” 

“ They call me Irene. ” 

“ Irene, Irene! — let me repeat it. It is a soft name, 
and dwells upon the lips as if loath to leave them, — a 
fitting name for one like thee.” 

Thus making his welcome court to Irene, in that 
flowered and glowing language which, if more peculiar 
to that age and to the gallantry of the South, is also 
the language in which the poetry of youthful passion 
would in all times and lands utter its rich extrava- 
gance, could heart speak to heart, Adrian conveyed 
homeward his beautiful charge, taking, however, the 
most circuitous and lengthened route, — an artifice which 
Irene either perceived not, or silently forgave. They 
were now within sight of the street in which Rienzi 
dwelt, when a party of men, hearing torches, came 
unexpectedly upon them. It was the train of the 
Bishop of Orvietto, returning from the palace of Martino 
di Porto, and in their way (accompanied by Rienzi) to 
that of Adrian. They had learned at the former, with- 
out an interview with the Orsini , from the retainers in 
the court below , the fortune of the conflict and the name 
of Irene’s champion; and, despite Adrian’s general 
reputation for gallantry, Rienzi knew enough of his 
character and the nobleness of his temper to feel 
assured that Irene was safe in his protection. Alas! 
in that very safety to the person is often the most danger 


74 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

to the heart. Woman never so dangerously loves as 
when he who loves her, for her sake, subdues himself. 

Clasped to her brother’s breast, Irene bade him thank 
her deliverer; and Kienzi, with that fascinating frank- 
ness which sits so well on those usually reserved, and 
which all who would rule the hearts of their fellow-men 
must at times command, advanced to the young Colonna, 
and poured forth his gratitude and praise. 

“We have been severed too long, — we must know 
each other again,” replied Adrian. “ I shall seek thee 
erelong, be assured.” 

Turning to take his leave of Irene, he conveyed her 
hand to his lips; and pressing it, as it dropped from his 
clasp, was he deceived in thinking that those delicate 
fingers lightly, involuntarily, returned the pressure? 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


75 


CHAPTER VII. 

Upon Love and Lovers. 

If, in adopting the legendary love-tale of Romeo and 
Juliet, Shakespeare had changed the scene in which it 
is cast for a more northern clime, we may doubt 
whether the art of Shakespeare himself could have 
reconciled us at once to the suddenness and the strength 
of Juliet’s passion. And, even as it is, perhaps there 
are few of our rational and sober-minded islanders who 
would not honestly confess, if fairly questioned, that 
they deem the romance and fervor of those ill-starred 
lovers of Verona exaggerated and overdrawn. Yet in 
Italy the picture of that affection born of a night, but 
" strong as death,” is one to which the veriest com- 
monplaces of life would afford parallels without number. 
As in different ages, so in different climes, love varies 
wonderfully in the shapes it takes; and even at this 
day, beneath Italian skies, many a simple girl would 
feel as Juliet, and many a homely gallant would rival 
the extravagance of Romeo. Long suits in that sunny 
land wherein, as whereof, I now write, are unknown. 
In no other land, perhaps, is there found so commonly 
the love at first sight, which in France is a jest 
and in England a doubt; in no other land, too, is love, 
though so suddenly conceived, more faithfully pre- 
served. That which is ripened in fancy comes at once 
to passion, yet is embalmed through all time by senti- 
ment. And this must be my and their excuse, if the 


76 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

love of Adrian seem too prematurely formed, and that 
of Irene too romantically conceived, — it is the excuse 
which they take from the air and the sun, from the 
customs of their ancestors, from the soft contagion of 
example. But while they yielded to the dictates of 
their hearts, it was with a certain though secret sadness, 
— a presentiment that had, perhaps, its charm, though 
it was of cross and evil. Born of so proud a race, 
Adrian could scarcely dream of marriage with the sister 
of a plebeian; and Irene, unconscious of the future glory 
of her brother, could Hardly have cherished any hope, 
save that of being loved. Yet these adverse circum- 
stances, which in the harder, the more prudent, the 
more self-denying, perhaps the more virtuous minds that 
are formed beneath the northern skies, would have 
been an inducement to wrestle against love so placed, 
only contributed to feed and to strengthen theirs by an 
opposition which has ever its attraction for romance. 
They found frequent, though short, opportunities of 
meeting, — not quite alone, but only in the conniving 
presence of Benedetta: sometimes in the public gardens, 
sometimes amidst the vast and deserted ruins by which 
the house of Rienzi was surrounded. They surrendered 
themselves, without much question of the future, to 
the excitement, the elysium, of the hour: they lived 
but from day to day; their future was the next time 
they should meet; beyond that epoch the very mists 
of their youthful love closed in obscurity and shadow 
which they sought not to penetrate: and as yet they 
had not arrived at that period of affection when there 
was danger of their fall , — their love had not passed 
the golden portal where Heaven ceases and Earth begins. 
Everything for them was the poetry, the vagueness, the 
refinement — not the power, the concentration, the mor- 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES; 


77 


tality — of desire! The look; the whisper; the brief 
pressure of the hand; at most, the first kisses of love, 
rare and few, — these marked the human limits of that 
sentiment which filled them with a new life, which 
elevated them as with a new soul. 

The roving tendencies of Adrian were at once fixed 
and centred; the dreams of his tender mistress had 
awakened to a life dreaming still, but “ rounded with 
.a truth.'y All that earnestness, and energy, and fervor 
of emotion which in her brother broke forth in the 
schemes of patriotism and the aspirations of power, 
were in Irene softened down into one object of exist- 
ence, one concentration of soul, — and that was love. 
Yet, in this range of thought and action, so apparently 
limited, there was in reality no less boundless a sphere 
than in the wide space of her brother’s many-pathed 
ambition. Not the less had she the power and scope 
for all the loftiest capacities granted to our clay. 
Equal was her enthusiasm for her idol; equal, had she 
been equally tried, would have been her generosity, 
her devotion: greater, be sure, her courage; more 
inalienable her worship ; more unsullied by selfish pur- 
poses and sordid views. Time, change, misfortune, 
ingratitude, would have left her the same! What 
state could fall, what liberty decay, if the zeal of man’s 
noisy patriotism were as pure as the silent loyalty of a 
woman’s love ? 

In them everything was young ! — the heart unchilled, 
unblighted, — that fulness and luxuriance of life’s life 
which has in it something of divine. At that age, 
when it seems as if we could never die, how deathless, 
how flushed and mighty as with the youngness of a god, 
is all that our hearts create ! Our own youth is like that 
of the earth itself, when it peopled the woods and waters 


78 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


with divinities; when life ran riot, and yet only gave 
hirth to beauty, — all its shapes, of poetry; all its airs, 
the melodies of Arcady and Olympus! The Golden 
Age never leaves the world: it exists still, and shall 
exist, till love, health, poetry, are no more; but only 
for the young! 

If I now dwell, though but for a moment, on this 
interlude in a drama calling forth more masculine pas- 
sions than that of love, it is because I foresee that the 
occasion will but rarely recur. If I linger on the 
description of Irene and her hidden affection, rather 
than wait for circumstances to portray them better than 
the author’s words can, it is because I foresee that that 
loving and lovely image must continue to the last rather 
a shadow than a portrait, — thrown in the background , 
as is the real destiny of such natures, by bolder figures 
and more gorgeous colors; a something whose presence 
is rather felt than seen, and whose very harmony with 
the whole consists in its retiring and subdued repose. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


79 


CHAPTER VIII. 

The Enthusiastic Man Judged by the Discreet Man. 

“ Thou wrongest me,” said Rienzi, warmly, to Adrian, 
as they sat alone, towards the close of a long confer- 
ence. “ I do not play the part of a mere demagogue ; I 
wish not to stir the great deeps in order that my lees of 
fortune may rise to the surface. So long have I brooded 
over the past that it seems to me as if I had become 
a part of it, as if I had no separate existence. I have 
coined my whole soul into one master passion, and 
its end is the restoration of Rome.” 

“ But by what means 1 ” 

" My lord ! my lord ! there is but one way to restore 
the greatness of a people, — it is an appeal to the people 
themselves. It is not in the power of princes and 
barons to make a state permanently glorious; they raise 
themselves, but they raise not the people with them. 
All great regenerations are the universal movement of 
the mass.” 

“Hay,” answered Adrian; “then have we read his- 
tory differently. To me all great regenerations seem to 
have been the work of the few, and tacitly accepted by 
the multitude. But let us not dispute after the manner 
of the schools. Thou sayest loudly that a vast crisis is 
at hand, that the Good Estate (buono stato) shall be 
established. How? where are your arms, your sol- 
diers? Are the nobles less strong than heretofore? Is 
the mob more bold, more constant? Heaven knows 


80 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


that I speak not with the prejudices of my order, — I 
weep for the debasement of my country ! I am a 
Eoman, and in that name I forget that I am a noble. 
But I tremble at the storm you would raise so hazard- 
ously. If your insurrection succeed, it will be violent; 
it will be purchased by blood, — by the blood of all the 
loftiest names of Rome. You will aim at a second 
expulsion of the Tarquins; but it will be more like a 
second proscription of Sylla. Massacres and disorders 
never pave the way to peace. If, on the other hand, 
you fail, the chains of Rome are riveted forever; an 
ineffectual struggle to escape is but an excuse for addi- 
tional tortures to the slave.” 

“ And what, then, would the Lord Adrian have us 
do ? ” said Rienzi , with that peculiar and sarcastic 
smile which has before been noted. “ Shall we wait 
till the Colonna and Orsini quarrel no more ? Shall we 
ask the Colonna for liberty, and the Orsini for justice? 
My lord, we cannot appeal to the nobles against the 
nobles. We must not ask them to moderate their 
power; we must restore to ourselves that power. There 
may be danger in the attempt, but we attempt it 
amongst the monuments of the Forum; and if we fall, 
we shall perish worthy of our sires! Ye have high 
descent and sounding titles and wide lands, and you 
talk of your ancestral honors! We, too, — we plebeians 
of Rome, — we have ours ! Our fathers were freemen ! 
Where is our heritage? Not sold, not given away; but 
stolen from us, now by fraud, now by force, — filched 
from us in our sleep, or wrung from us with fierce 
hands amidst our cries and struggles. My lord, we 
but ask that lawful heritage to be restored to us : to us 
— nay, to you it is the same; your liberty, alike, is 
gone. Can you dwell in your father’s house without 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


81 


towers and fortresses, and the bought swords of bravos 1 
Can you walk in the streets at dark without arms and 
followers? True, you^ a noble, may retaliate, though 
we dare not. You, in your turn, may terrify and out- 
rage others; hut does license compensate for liberty? 
They have given you pomp and power; but the safety 
of equal laws were a better gift. Oh, were I you, 
were I Stephen Colonna himself, I should pant, ay, 
thirstily as I do now, for that free air which comes not 
through bars and bulwarks against my fellow-citizens, 
but in the open space of Heaven, — safe, because pro- 
tected by the silent Providence of Law, and not by the 
lean fears and hollow-eyed suspicions which are the 
comrades of a hated power. The tyrant thinks he is 
free, because he commands slaves; the meanest peasant 
in a free state is more free than he is. Oh, my lord, 
that you, the brave, the generous, the enlightened, — 
you, almost alone amidst your order, in the knowledge 
that we had a country — oh, would that you, who can 
sympathize with our sufferings, would strike with us 
for their redress ! ” 

“Thou wilt war against Stephen Colonna, my kins- 
man; and though I have seen him but little, nor, truth 
to say, esteem him much, yet he is the boast of our 
house. How can I join thee ? ” 

“ His life will be safe, his possessions safe, his rank 
safe. What do we war against? His power to do 
wrong to others.” 

“ Should he discover that thou hast force beyond 
words, he would be less merciful to thee^ 

“ And has he not discovered that ? Do not the shouts 
of the people tell him that I am a man whom he should 
fear? Does he — the cautious, the wily, the profound 
— does he build fortresses and erect towers, and not see 

VOL. I. — 6 


82 


llIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


from his battlements the mighty fabric that I, too, have 
erected ? ” 

“ You ! Where, Eienzi ? ” 

“ In the hearts of Rome ! Does he not see ? ” con- 
tinued Rienzi. “No, no; he — all, all his tribe are 
blind. Is it not so ? 

“ Of a certainty, my kinsman has no belief in your 
power, else he would have crushed you long ere this. 
Nay, it was but three days ago that he said, gravely, 
he would rather you addressed the populace than the 
best priest in Christendom ; for that other orators 
inflamed the crowd, and no man so stilled and dispersed 
them as you did.” 

“ And I called him profound ! Does not heaven hush 
the air most when most it prepares the storm? Ay, 
my lord, I understand. Stephen Colonna despises me. 
I have been ” (here, as he continued, a deep blush man- 
tled over his cheek) — “ you remember it — at his 
palace in my younger days, and pleased him with witty 
tales and light apophthegms. Nay, — ha, ha! — he 
would call me, I think, sometimes, in gay compliment, 
his jester, his buffoon 1 I have brooked his insult; I 
have even bowed to his applause. I would undergo the 
same penance, stoop to the same shame, for the same 
motive and in the same cause. What did I desire to 
effect ? Can you tell me ? No ! I will whisper it, then, 
to you : it was — the contempt of Stephen Colonna. 
Under that contempt I was protected, till protection 
became no longer necessary. I desired not to be 
thought formidable by the patricians, in order that, 
quietly and unsuspected, I might make my way amongst 
the people. I have done so; I now throw aside the 
mask. Face to face with Stephen Colonna, I could tell 
him, this very hour, that I brave his anger; that I 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


83 


laugh at his dungeons and armed men. But if he think 
me the same Bienzi as of old, let him; I can wait my 
hour.” 

“ Yet,” said Adrian, waiving an answer to the haughty 
language of his companion, “ tell me, what dost thou ask 
for the people, in order to avoid an appeal to their 
passions? Ignorant and capricious as they are, thou 
canst not appeal to their reason.” 

“ I ask full justice and safety for all men. I will be 
contented with no less a compromise. I ask the nobles 
to dismantle their fortresses, to disband their armed 
retainers, to acknowledge no impunity for crime in high 
lineage, to claim no protection save in the courts of the 
common law.” 

“ Vain desire! ” said Adrian. “ Ask what may yet 
be granted. ” 

“ Ha, ha! ” replied Bienzi, laughing bitterly; “ did I 
not tell you it was a vain dream to ask for law and jus- 
tice at the hands of the great? Can you blame me, 
then, that I ask it elsewhere?” Then, suddenly 
changing his tone and manner, he added with great 
solemnity: “Waking life hath false and vain dreams; 
hut sleep is sometimes a mighty prophet. By sleep it 
is that heaven mysteriously communes with its creatures, 
and guides and sustains its earthly agents in the path 
to which its providence leads them on.” 

Adrian made no reply. This was not the first time 
he had noted that Bienzi^s strong intellect was strangely 
conjoined with a deep and mystical superstition. And 
this yet more inclined the young noble, who, though 
sufficiently devout, yielded but little to the wilder 
credulities of the time, to doubt the success of the 
schemer’s projects. In this he erred greatly, though 
his error was that of the worldly wise ; for nothing ever 


84 


RIEN2I, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


so inspires human daring as the fond belief that it is 
the agent of a Diviner Wisdom. Eevenge and patriot- 
ism united in one man of genius and ambition, — such 
are the Archimedean levers that find in fanaticism 
the spot out of the world by which to move the world. 
The prudent man may direct a state; but it is the 
enthusiast who regenerates it, — or ruins. 


RlEKZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


85 


CHAPTEE IX. 

When the People saw this Picture, every one Marvelled. 

Before the market-place and at the foot of the Capitol 
an immense crowd was assembled. Each man sought 
to push before his neighbor; each struggled to gain 
access to one particular spot, round which the crowd was 
wedged thick and dense. 

“ Corpo di Dio ! ” said a man of huge stature, pressing 
onward, like some bulky ship casting the noisy waves 
right and left from its prow, “ this is hot work ; but for 
what, in the Holy Mother^s name, do ye crowd so ? See 
you not. Sir Eibald, that my right arm is disabled, 
swathed, and bandaged, so that I cannot help myself 
better than a baby ? and yet you push against me as if I 
were an old wall ! ” 

“ Ah, Cecco del Vecchio ! What, man ! we must make 
way for you, — you are too small and tender to bustle 
through a crowd ! Come, I will protect you ! ” said a 
dwarf of some four feet high, glancing up at the giant. 

“Faith,” said the grim smith, looking round on the 
mob, who laughed loud at the dwarf’s proffer, “ we all 
do want protection, big and small. What do you 
laugh for, ye apes? Ay, you don’t understand 
parables. ” 

“ And yet it is a parable we are come to gaze upon,” 
said one of the mob, with a slight sneer. 

“Pleasant day to you. Signor Baroncelli,” answered 
Cecco del Vecchio: “ you are a good man, and love the 


86 KIEN2I, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

people ; it makes one^s heart smile to see you. What ^s 
all this pother for? ” 

“ Why, the pope’s notary hath set up a great picture 
in the market-place, and the gapers say it relates to 
E/Ome; so they are melting their brains out, this hot 
day, to guess at the riddle.” 

“ Ho, ho ! ” said the smith, pushing on so vigorously 
that he left the speaker suddenly in the rear. “ If Cola 
di Eienzi hath aught in the matter, I would break 
through stone rocks to get to it.” 

“ Much good will a dead daub do us,” said Baroncelli, 
aourly, and turning to his neighbors; but no man lis- 
tened to him, and he, a would-be demagogue, gnawed 
his lip in envy. 

Amidst' half-awed groans and curses from the men 
whom he jostled aside, and open objurgations and shrill 
cries from the women, to whose robes and head-gear he 
showed as little respect, the sturdy smith won his way 
to a space fenced round by chains, in the centre of 
which was placed a huge picture. 

" How came it hither ? ” cried one ; “ I was first at 
the market.” 

“ We found it here at daybreak,” said a vendor of 
fruit; “ no one was by.” 

“ But why do you fancy Eienzi had a hand in it ? ” 

“ Why, who else could ? ” answered twenty voices. 

“ True ! Who else ? ” echoed the gaunt smith. “ I 
dare be sworn the good man spent the whole night 
in painting it himself. Blood of St. Peter! but it is 
mighty fine 1 What is it about ? ” 

“ That ’s the riddle, ” said a meditative fishwoman ; “ if 
I could make it out, I should die happy. ” 

“ It is something about liberty and taxes, no doubt,” 
said Luigi, the butcher, leaning over the chains. “ Ah, 


EIENZT, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 87 

if Rienzi were minded, every poor man would have his 
bit of meat in his pot. ” 

“ And as much bread as he could eat, ” added a pale 
baker. 

“Chut! bread and meat, — everybody has that now; 
but what wine the poor folks drink ! One has no 
encouragement to take pains with one’s vineyard,” said 
a vinedresser. 

“ Ho, hollo ! — long life to Pandulfo di Guido 1 make 
way for master Pandulfo : he is a learned man ; he is a 
friend of the great notary’s ; he will tell us all about the 
picture; make way there, — make way! ” 

Slowly and modestly Pandulfo di Guido, a quiet, 
wealthy, and honest man of letters, whom naught save 
the violence of the times could have roused from his 
tranquil home or his studious closet, passed to the 
chains. He looked long and hard at the picture, which 
was bright with new and yet moist colors, and exhibited 
somewhat of the reviving art which, though hard and 
harsh in its features, was about that time visible, and, 
carried to a far higher degree, we yet gaze upon in the 
paintings of Perugino, who flourished during the succeeding 
generation. The people pressed round the learned man 
with open mouths ; now turning their eyes to the picture, 
now to Pandulfo. 

“ Know you not, ” at length said Pandulfo, “ the easy 
and palpable meaning of this design? Behold how the 
painter has presented to you a vast and stormy sea ; mark 
how its waves — ” 

“ Speak louder, louder ! ” shouted the impatient crowd. 

“ Hush ! ” cried those in the immediate vicinity of 
Pandulfo ; “ the worthy signor, is perfectly audible ! ” 

Meanwhile some of the more witty, pushing towards 
a stall in the market-place, bore from it a rough table, 


88 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


from whicli they besouglit Pandulfo to address the 
people. The pale citizen, with some pain and shame, 
for he was no practised spokesman, was obliged to 
assent; hut when he cast his eyes over the vast and 
breathless crowd, his own deep sympathy with their 
cause inspired and emboldened him. A light broke from 
his eyes; his voice swelled into power; and his head, 
usually buried in his breast, became erect and command- 
ing in its air. 

“ You see before you in the picture,” he began again, 
“ a mighty and tempestuous sea ; upon its waves you 
behold five ships : four of them are already wrecks, — 
their masts are broken, the waves are dashing through 
the rent planks, they are past all aid and hope; on 
each of these ships lies the corpse of a. woman. See 
you not, in the wan face and livid limbs, how faithfully 
the limner hath painted the hues and loathsomeness of 
death ? Below each of these ships is a word that applies 
the metaphor to truth. Yonder, you see the name of 
Carthage; the other three are Troy, Jerusalem, and 
Babylon. To these four is one common inscription. 
‘To exhaustion were we brought by injustice!’ Turn 
now your eyes to the middle of the sea, — there you 
behold the fifth ship, tossed amidst the waves, her 
mast broken, her rudder gone, her sails shivered, but 
not yet a wreck like the rest, though she soon may be. 
On her deck kneels a female, clothed in mourning; 
mark the woe upon her countenance, — how cunningly 
the artist has conveyed its depth and desolation; she 
stretches out her arms in prayer ; she implores your and 
Heaven’s assistance. Mark now the superscription, ‘ This 
is Borne! ’ Yes, it is your country that addresses you in 
this emblem ! ” 

The crowd waved to and fro, and a deep murmur crept 


RIENZT, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


89 


gathering over the silence which they had hitherto 
kept. 

“ Now, ” continued Pandulfo, “ turn your gaze to the 
right of the picture, and you will behold the cause of 
the tempest, — you will see why the fifth vessel is thus 
perilled, and her sisters are thus wrecked. Mark four 
different kinds of animals, who from their horrid jaws 
send forth the winds and storms which torture and 
rack the sea. The first are the lions, the wolves, the 
bears. These, the inscription tells you, are the lawless 
and savage signors of the state. The next are the 
dogs and swine, — these are the evil counsellors and 
parasites. Thirdly, you behold the dragons and the 
foxes; and these are false judges and notaries, and 
they who sell justice. Fourthly, in the hares, the 
goats, the apes, that assist in creating the storm, you 
perceive, by the inscription, the emblems of the popular 
thieves and homicides, ravishers and spoliators. Are ye 
bewildered still, 0 Pomans! or have ye mastered the 
riddle of the picture ? ’’ 

Far in their massive palaces the Savelli and Orsini 
heard the echo of the shouts that answered the question 
of Pandulfo. 

“ Are ye, then, without hope ? ” resumed the scholar, 
as the shout ceased, and hushing, with the first sound 
of his voice, the ejaculations and speeches which each 
man had turned to utter to his neighbor. “ Are ye 
without hope? Doth the picture, which shows your 
tribulation, promise you no redemption ? Behold, above 
that angry sea the heavens open, and the majesty of 
God descends gloriofisly, as to judgment; and from 
the rays that surround the Spirit of God extend two 
flaming swords, and on those swords stand, in wrath 
but in deliverance, the two patron saints, — the two 


90 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

mighty guardians of your city ! People of Eome, fare- 
well ! the parable is finished. ” ^ 

1 M. Sismondi attributes to Rienzi a fine oration at the showing 
of the picture, in which he thundered against the vices of the 
patricians. The contemporary biographer of Rienzi sayshothing 
of this harangue. But ‘apparently (since history has its liberties 
as well as fiction) M. Sismondi has thought it convenient to con- 
found two occasions very distinct in themselves. 


KIEiTZl, THE LAST OE THE TRIBUNES. 


91 


CHAPTEE X. 

A Rough Spirit raised, which may hereafter rend the Wizard. 

While thus animated was the scene around the Capitol, 
within one of the apartments of the palace sat the agent 
and prime cause of that excitement. In the company of 
his quiet scribes, Eienzi appeared absorbed in the patient 
details of his avocation. While the murmur and the 
hum, the shout and the tramp, of multitudes rolled to 
his chamber, he seemed not to heed them, nor to rouse 
himself a moment from his task. With the unbroken 
regularity of an automaton, he continued to enter in his 
large book, and with the clear and beautiful characters of 
the period, those damning figures which taught him, bet- 
ter than declamations, the frauds practised on the people, 
and armed him with that weapon of plain fact which it 
is so difficult for abuse to parry. 

“Page 2, Vol. B.,” said he, in the tranquil voice of 
business, to the clerks, “ see there the profits of the salt 
duty; department No. 3, — very well. Page 9, Vol. D. 
— what is the account rendered by Vescobaldi, the col- 
lector ? What ! twelve thousand florins ? — no more % — 
unconscionable rascal ! ” (Here was a loud shout without 
of ‘ ‘ Pandulfo ! — long live Pandulfo ! ”) “ Pastrucci, my 

friend, your head wanders ; you are listening to the noise 
without, — please to amuse yourself with the calculation 
I intrusted to you. Santi, what is the entry given in by 
Antonio Tralli % ” 

A slight tap was heard at the door, and Pandulfo 
entered. 


d2 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

The clerks continued their labor, though they looked 
up hastily at the pale and respectable visitor, whose name, 
to their great astonishment, had thus become a popular 
cry. 

“ Ah, my friend, ” said Rienzi, calmly enough in voice, 
but his hands trembled with ill-suppressed emotion, “ you 
would speak to me alone, eh? Well, well, — this way.” 
Thus saying, he led the citizen into a small cabinet in 
the rear of the room of office, carefully shut the door, 
and then giving himself up to the natural impatience of 
his character, seized Pandulfo by the hand. “ Speak ! ” 
cried he ; “ do they take the interpretation ? Have you 
made it plain and palpable enough ? Has it sunk deep 
into their souls ? ” 

“ Oh, by St. Peter, yes ! ” returned the citizen, whose 
spirits were elevated by his recent discovery that he, too, 
was an orator, — a luxurious pleasure for a timid man. 
“ They swallowed every word of the interpretation ; they 
are moved to the marrow, — you might lead them this 
very hour to battle, and find them heroes. As for the 
sturdy smith — ” 

“ What ! Cecco del Vecchio ? ” interrupted Rienzi ; “ ah, 
his heart is wrought in bronze, — what did he ? ” 

“ Why, he caught me by the hem of my robe as I de- 
scended my rostrum (oh, would you could have seen me! 
— per fede^ I had caught your mantle 1 — I was a second 
you !) and said, weeping like a child, ‘ Ah, signor, T am 
but a poor man, and of little worth ; but if every drop of 
blood in this body were a life, I would give it for my 
country 1 ’ ” 

“ Brave soul 1 ” said Rienzi, with emotion ; “ would 
Rome had but fifty such ! No man hath done us more 
good among his own class than Cecco del Vecchio.” 

“ They feel a protection in his very size,” said Pandulfo. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 93 

“ It is something to hear such big words from such a big 
fellow.” 

“ Were there any voices lifted in disapprobation of the 
picture and its sentiment ? ” 

“ None.” 

“The time is nearly ripe, then, — a few suns more, 
and the fruit must be gathered. The Aventine, the 
Lateran, — and then the solitary trumpet!” Thus 
saying, Rienzi, with folded arms and downcast eyes, 
seemed sunk into a reverie. 

“ By the way, ” said Pandulfo, “ I had almost forgot 
to tell thee that the crowd would have poured themselves 
hither, so impatient were they to see thee ; but I bade 
Cecco del Vecchio mount the rostrum, and tell them, in 
his blunt way, that it would be unseemly at the present 
time, when thou wert engaged in the Capitol on civil 
and holy affairs, to rush in so great a body into thy 
presence. Did I not right ? ” 

“ Most right, my Pandulfo. ” 

“ But Cecco del Vecchio says he must come and kiss 
thy hand, and thou mayst expect him here the moment 
he can escape unobserved from the crowd. ” 

“ He is welcome ! ” said Rienzi, half mechanically, for 
he was still absorbed in thought. 

“ And, lo ! here he is, ” — as one of the scribes an- 
nounced the visit of the smith. 

“ Let him be admitted, ” said Rienzi, seating himself 
composedly. 

When the huge smith found himself in the presence 
of Rienzi, it amused Pandulfo to perceive the wonderful 
influences of mind over matter. That fierce and sturdy 
giant, who in all popular commotions towered above his 
tribe, with thews of stone and nerves of iron, the rally- 
ing-point and bulwark of the rest, stood now coloring 


94 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


and trembling before the intellect which (so had the 
eloquent spirit of Eienzi waked and fanned the spark 
which till then had lain dormant in that rough bosom) 
might almost be said to have created his own. And he, 
indeed, who first arouses in the bondsman the sense and 
soul of freedom, comes as near as is permitted to man, 
nearer than the philosopher, nearer even than the poet, 
to the great creative attribute of God! But if the breast 
be uneducated, the gift may curse the giver; and he who 
passes at once from the slave to the freeman may pass as 
rapidly from the freeman to the ruffian. 

“ Approach, my friend, ” said Eienzi, after a moment’s 
pause ; “ I know all that thou hast done, and wouldst do, 
for Eome ! Thou art worthy of her best days, and thou 
art born to share in their return. ” 

The smith dropped at the feet of Eienzi, who held 
out his hand to raise him, which Cecco del Vecchio 
seized, and reverentially kissed. 

“ This kiss does not betray, ” said Eienzi, smiling ; 
“ but rise, my friend, — this posture is only due to God 
and his saints ! ” 

“ He is a saint who helps us at need ! ” said the 
smith, bluntly, “ and that no man has done as thou 
hast. But when,” he added, sinking his voice, and 
fixing his eyes hard on Eienzi as one may do who waits 
a signal to strike a blow, “ when — when shall we make 
the great effort ? ” 

“ Thou hast spoken to all the brave men in thy 
neighborhood, — are they well prepared ? ” 

“ To live or die, as Eienzi bids them 1 ” 

“ I must have the list — the number, names, houses, 
and callings — this night. ” 

“Thou Shalt.” 

“ Each man must sign his name or mark with his own 
*hand. ” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


95 


“It shall he done.” 

“ Then, harkye ! attend Pandulfo di Guido at his 
house this evening at sunset. He shall instruct thee 
where to meet this night some brave hearts; thou art 
worthy to be ranked amongst them. Thou wilt not 
fail! ” 

“ By the Holy Stairs ! I will count every minute till 
then, ” said the smith, his swarthy face lighted with pride 
at the confidence shown him. 

“ Meanwhile watch all your neighbors ; let no man 
flag or grow faint-hearted, — none of thy friends must be 
branded as a traitor 1 ” 

“ I will cut his throat, were he my own mother’s 
son, if I find one pledged man flinch! ” said the fierce 
smith. 

“ Ha, ha ! ” rejoined Rienzi, with that strange laugh 
which belonged to him : “ a miracle ! a miracle ! The 
Picture speaks now! ” 

It was already nearly dusk when Rienzi left the 
Capitol. The broad space before its walls was empty 
and deserted, and, wrapping his mantle closely round 
him, he walked musingly on. 

“ I have almost climbed the height, ” thought he, 
“and now the precipice yawns before me. If I fail, 
what a fall! The last hope of my country falls with 
me. Never will a noble rise against the nobles. Never 
will another plebeian have the opportunities and the 
power that I have ! Rome is bound up with me, — 
with a single life. The liberties of all time are fixed 
to a reed that a wind may uproot. But oh, Providence! 
hast thou not reserved and marked me for great deeds 1 
How, step by step, have I been led on to this solemn 
enterprise! How has each hour prepared its successor! 


96 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

And yet what danger! If the inconstant people, made 
cowardly by long thraldom, do but waver in the crisis, I 
am swept away ! ” 

As he spoke, he raised his eyes, and lo ! before him, 
the first star of twilight shone calmly down upon the 
crumbling remnants of the Tarpeian Kock. It was no 
favoring omen, and Hienzi’s heart beat quicker as that 
dark and ruined mass frowned thus suddenly on his 
gaze. 

“ Dread monument, ” thought he, “ of what dark ca- 
tastrophes, to what unknown schemes, hast thou been 
the witness! To how many enterprises on which history 
is dumb, hast thou set the seal ! How know we 
whether they were criminal or just? How know we 
whether he, thus doomed as a traitor, would not, if 
successful, have been immortalized as a deliverer? If 
I fall, who will write my chronicle? One of the 
people ? Alas ! blinded and ignorant , they furnish forth 
no minds that can appeal to posterity. One of the 
patricians ? In what colors then shall I be painted ? Ho 
tomb will rise for me amidst the wrecks, no hand scatter 
flowers upon my grave! ” 

Thus meditating on the verge of that mighty enter- 
prise to which he had devoted himself, Rienzi pursued 
his way. He gained the Tiber, and paused for a few 
moments beside its legendary stream, over which the 
purple and starlit heaven shone deeply down. He 
crossed the bridge which leads to the quarter of the 
Trastevere, whose haughty inhabitants yet boast them- 
selves the sole true descendants of the ancient Romans. 
Here his step grew quicker and more light; brighter, if 
less solemn, thoughts crowded upon his breast; and 
ambition, lulled for a moment, left his strained and over- 
labored mind to the reign of a softer passion. 


/ 


RIENZL THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 97 


CHAPTER XI. 

Nina di Raselli. 

“ I TELL you, Lucia, I do not love those stuffs ; they do 
not become me ! Saw you ever so poor a dye ? — this 
purple, indeed ! that crimson ! Why did you let the man 
leave them? Let him take them elsewhere to-morrow. 
They may suit the signoras on the other side the Tiber, 
who imagine everything Venetian must be perfect; but I, 
Lucia, I see with my own eyes, and judge from my own 
mind. ” 

“ Ah, dear lady, ” said the serving-maid, “ if you 
were, as you doubtless will be some time or other, a 
grand signora, how worthily you would wear the honors! 
Santa Cecilia! no other dame in Rome would be looked 
at while the Lady Nina were by ! ” 

“ Would we not teach them what pomp was ? ” answered 
Nina. “Oh, what festivals would we hold! Saw you 
not from the gallery the revels given last week by the 
Lady Giulia Savelli ? ” 

“ Ay, signora ; and when you walked up the hall in 
your silver and pearl tissue, there ran such a murmur 
through the gallery : every one cried, ‘ The Savelli have 
entertained an angel ! ’ ” 

“ Pish ! Lucia ; no flattery, girl. ” 

“ It is naked truth, lady. But that was a revel, was 
it not ? There was grandeur ! — fifty servitors in scarlet 
and gold! and the music playing all the while. The 
minstrels were sent for from Bergamo. Did not that 

VOL. I. — 7 


98 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

festival please you ? Ah, I warrant many were the fine 
speeches made to you that day ! ” 

“ Heigho ! — no, there was one voice wanting, and all 
the music was marred. But, girl, were I the Lady Giulia, 
I would not have been contented with so poor a revel. ” 

“ How, poor ! Why, all the nobles say it outdid the 
proudest marriage-feast of the Colonna. Ha}'', a Nea- 
politan who sat next me, and who had served under the 
young Queen Joanna at her marriage, says that even 
Naples was outshone. ” 

“That may be. I know naught of Naples; hut I 
know what my court should have been, were I what — 
what I am not, and may never he ! The banquet vessels 
should have been of gold; the cups jewelled to the brim; 
not an inch of the rude pavement should have been visi- 
ble; all should have glowed with cloth of gold. The 
fountain in the court should have showered up the per- 
fumes of the East ; my pages should not have been rough 
youths, blushing at their own uncouthness, hut fair hoys 
who had not told their twelfth year, culled from the 
daintiest palaces of Borne; and as for the music, oh, 
Lucia! ea6h musician should have worn a chaplet, and 
deserved it; and he who played best should have had a 
reward, to inspire all the rest, — a rose from me. Saw 
you, too, the Lady Giulia’s robe ! What colors ! they 
might have put out the sun at noonday ! — yellow, and 
blue, and orange, and scarlet 1 Oh, sweet saints 1 — hut 
my eyes ached all the next day 1 ” 

“ Doubtless the Lady Giulia lacks your skill in the 
mixture of colors,” said the complaisant waiting- woman. 

“And then, too, what a mien! — no royalty in it! 
She moved along the hall so that her train wellnigh 
tripped her every moment; and then she said, with a 
foolish laugh, ‘ These holiday robes are but troublesome 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


99 


luxuries.’ Troth, for the great there should be no holi- 
day robes; ’t is for myself, not for others, that I would 
attire ! Every day should have its new robe, more gor- 
geous than the last ; every day should be a holiday ! ” 

“ Methought, ” said Lucia, “ that the Lord Giovanni 
Orsini seemed very devoted to my lady. ” 

“ He ! the bear ! ” 

“ Bear he may be, but he has a costly skin ; his riches 
are untold.” 

“ And the fool knows not how to spend them. ” 

“ Was not that the young Lord Adrian who spoke to 
you just by the columns, where the music played ? ” 

“ It might be, — I forget. ” 

“Yet I hear that few ladies forget when Lord Adrian 
di Gastello woos them. ” 

“ There was but one man whose company seemed to 
me worth the recollection,” answered Nina, unheeding 
the insinuation of the artful handmaid. 

“ And who was he ? ” asked Lucia. 

“ The old scholar from Avignon ! ” 

“ What ! he with the gray beard ? Oh, signora ! ” 

“ Yes,” said Nina, with a grave and sad voice; “ when 
he spoke, the whole scene vanished from my eyes, for 
he spoke to me of Him ! ” 

As she said this, the signora sighed deeply, and the 
tears gathered to her eyes. 

The waiting-woman raised her lips in disdain, and 
her looks in wonder; but she did not dare to venture a 
reply. 

“ Open the lattice, ” said Nina, after a pause, “ and 
give me yon paper. Not that, girl, — but the verses 
sent me yesterday. What ! art thou Italian, and dost 
thou not know, by instinct, that I spoke of the rhyme 
of Petrarch ? ” 


L.ofC. 


100 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

Seated by the open casement, througli which the 
moonlight stole soft and sheen, with one lamp beside 
her, from which she seemed to shade her eyes, though 
in reality she sought to hide her countenance from Lucia, 
the young signora appeared absorbed in one of those 
tender sonnets which then turned the brains and inflamed 
the hearts of Italy. ^ 

Born of an impoverished house, which, though boasb 
ing its descent from a consular race of Borne, scarcely at 
that day maintained a rank amongst the inferior order of 
nobility, Nina di Baselli was the spoiled child — the 
idol and the tyrant — of her parents. The energetic and 
self-willed character of her mind made her rule where 
she should have obeyed ; and as in all ages dispositions 
can conquer custom, she had, though in a clime and land 
where the young and unmarried of her sex are usually 
chained and fettered, assumed, and by assuming won, the 
prerogative of independence. She possessed, it is true, 
more learning and more genius than generally fell to the 
share of women in that day, and enough of both to be 
deemed a miracle by her parents. She had also, what 
they valued more, a surpassing beauty; and, what they 
feared more, an indomitable haughtiness, — a haughti- 
ness mixed with a thousand soft and endearing qualities 
where she loved, and which, indeed, where she loved, 
seemed to vanish. At once vain yet high-minded, reso- 
lute yet impassioned, there was a gorgeous magnificence 

1 Although it is true that the love sonnets of Petrarch were not 
then, as now, the most esteemed of his works, yet it has been a 
great, though a common error, to represent them as little known 
and coldly admired. Their effect was, in reality, prodigious and 
universal. Every ballad-singer sung them in the streets, and (says 
Filippo Villani) “ Gravissimi nesciebant abstinere,” — “ Even the 
gravest could not abstain from them.” 


RIENZT, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


101 


in her very vanity and splendor, — an ideality in her 
waywardness; her defects made a part of her brilliancy, 
without them she would have seemed less woman ; and, 
knowing her, you would have compared all women by 
her standard. Softer qualities beside her seemed not 
more charming, but more insipid. She had no vulgar 
ambition, for she had obstinately refused many alliances 
which the daughter of Raselli could scarcely have hoped 
to form. The untutored minds and savage power of the 
Koman nobles seemed to her imagination, which was full 
of the 'poetry of rank, its luxury and its graces, as some- 
thing barbarous and revolting, at once to be dreaded and 
despised. She had, therefore, passed her twentieth year 
unmarried, but not without love. The faults themselves 
of her character elevated that ideal of love which she 
had formed. She required some being round whom all 
her vainer qualities could rally ; she felt that where she 
loved she must adore; she demanded no common idol 
before which to humble so strong and imperious a mind. 
Unlike women of a gentler mould, who desire for a 
short period to exergise the caprices of sweet empire, — 
when she loved she must cease to command, and pride 
at once be humbled to devotion. So rare were the 
qualities that could attract her, so imperiously did her 
haughtiness require that those qualities should be above 
her own, yet of the same order, that her love elevated 
its object like a god. Accustomed to despise, she felt 
all the luxury it is to venerate ! And if it were her lot 
to be united with one thus loved, her nature was that 
which might become elevated by the nature that it gazed 
on. For her beauty, — Header, shouldst thou ever go to 
Home, thou wilt see in the Capitol the picture of the 
Cumaean Sibyl, which, often copied, no copy can even 
faintly represent. I beseech thee, mistake not this sibyl 


102 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


for another, for the Eoman galleries abound in sibyls.'^ 
The sibyl I speak of is dark, and the face has an 
Eastern cast ; the robe and turban, gorgeous though they 
be, grow dim before the rich but transparent roses of the 
cheek; the hair would be black, save for that golden 
glow which mellows it to a hue and lustre never seen 
but in the South, and even in the South most rare ; the 
features, not Grecian, are yet faultless; the mouth, the 
brow, the ripe and exquisite contour, — all are human and 
voluptuous ; the expression, the aspect, is something 
more ; the form is, perhaps, too full for the perfection of 
loveliness, for the proportions of sculpture, for the deli- 
cacy of Athenian models; but the luxuriant fault has a 
majesty. Gaze long upon that picture; it charms, yet 
commands the eye. While you gaze, you call back five 
centuries. You see* before you the breathing image of 
Nina di Easelli ! 

But it was not those ingenious and elaborate conceits 
in which Petrarch, great poet though he be, has so 
often mistaken pedantry for passion, that absorbed at that 
moment the attention of the beautiful Nina. Her eyes 
rested not on the page, but on the garden that stretched 
below the casement. Over the old fruit-trees and hang- 
ing vines fell the moonshine; and in the centre of the 
green but half neglected sward the waters of a small and 
circular fountain, whose perfect proportions spoke of days 
long past, played and sparkled in the starlight. The 
scene was still and beautiful; but neither of its stillness 
nor its beauty thought Nina : towards one, the gloomiest 
and most rugged, spot in the whole garden, turned her 

1 The sibyl referred to is the well-known one by Domenichino. 
As a mere work of art, that by Guercino, called the Persian sibyl, 
in the same collection, is perhaps superior ; but in beauty, in char- 
acter, there is no comparison. 


RIENZI,THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 103 


gaze; there the trees stood densely massed together, and 
shut from view the low but heavy wall which encir- 
cled the mansion of E-aselli. The houghs on those trees 
stirred gently, hut Nina saw them wave; and now from 
the copse emerged, slowly and cautiously, a solitary 
figure, whose shadow threw itself, long and dark, over 
the sward. It approached the window, and a low voice 
breathed Nina’s name. 

“ Quick, Lucia ! ” cried she, breathlessly, turning to 
her handmaid, “ quick ! the rope-ladder ! it is he ! he is 
come ! How slow you are ! Haste, girl, — he may be 
discovered ! There — 0 joy! — Ojoy! — My lover ! my 
hero ! my E-ienzi ! ” 

“ It is you ! ” said Eienzi, as, now entering the cham- 
ber, he wound his arms around her half-averted form; 
“ and what is night to others is day to me ! ” 

The first sweet moments of welcome were over; and 
Eienzi was seated at the feet of his mistress, his head 
rested on her knees, his face looking up to hers, their 
hands clasped each in each. 

“ And for me thou bravest these dangers ! ” said the lover, 
— “ the shame of discovery, the wrath of thy parents 1 ” 

“ But what are my perils to thine 1 Oh, Heaven 1 if 
my father found thee here, thou wouldst die 1 ” 

“ He would think it then so great a humiliation that 
thou, beautiful Nina, who mightst match with the 
haughtiest names of Borne, shouldst waste thy love on a 
plebeian, even though the grandson of an emperor! ” 
The proud heart of Nina could sympathize well with 
the wounded pride of her lover: she detected the sore- 
ness which lurked beneath his answer, carelessly as it 
was uttered. 

“ Hast thou not told me, ” she said, “ of that great 
Marius, who was no noble, but from whom the loftiest 


104 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


Colonna would rejoice to claim his descent? and do I not 
know in thee one who shall yet eclipse the power of 
Marius, unsullied by his vices ? ” 

“ Delicious flattery ! sweet prophet ! ” said Eienzi, with 
a melancholy smile : “ never were thy supporting prom- 
ises of the future more welcome to me than now ; for to 
thee I will say what I would utter to none else, — my 
soul half sinks beneath the mighty burden I have heaped 
upon it. I want new courage as the dread hour ap- 
proaches ; and from thy words and looks I drink it. ” 

“ Oh ! ” answered Nina, blushing as she spoke, “ glo- 
rious is indeed the lot which I have bought by my 
love for thee, — glorious to share thy schemes, to cheer 
thee in doubt, to whisper hope to thee in danger. ” 

And give grace to me in triumph ! ” added Eienzi, 
passionately. “ Ah ! should the future ever place upon 
these brows the laurel-wreath due to one who has saved 
his country, what joy, what recompense, to lay it at 
thy feet ! Perhaps, in those long and solitary hours of 
languor and exhaustion which fill up the interstices of 
time, — the dull space for sober thought between the 
epochs of exciting action, — perhaps I should have failed 
and flagged, and renounced even my dreams for Eome, 
had they not been linked also with my dreams for 
thee ! — had I not pictured to myself the hour when 
my fate should elevate me beyond my birth ; when thy 
sire would deem it no disgrace to give thee to my arms ; 
when thou, too, shouldst stand amidst the dames of 
Eome, more honored, as more beautiful, than all; and 
when I should see that pomp, which my own soul dis- 
dains, ^ made dear and grateful to me because associated 

1 Quern semper abhorrui sicut cenum,” is the expression used 
by Rienzi, in his letter to his friend at Avignon, and which was 
probably sincere. Men rarely act according to the bias of their 
own tastes. 


illENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 105 


with thee ! Yes, it is these thoughts that have inspired 
me, when sterner ones have shrunk hack appalled from 
the spectres that surround their goal. And oh, my 
Nina, sacred, strong, enduring must he, indeed, the love 
which lives in the same pure and elevated air as that 
which sustains my hopes of liberty and fame ! ” 

This was the language which, more even than the vows of 
fidelity and the dear adulation which springs from the 
heart’s exuberance, had hound the proud and vain soul of 
Nina to the chains that it so willingly wore. Perhaps, 
indeed, in the absence of Rienzi, her weaker nature pic- 
tured to herself the triumph of humbling the high-born 
signoras, and eclipsing the barbarous magnificence of the 
chiefs of Rome ; but in his presence, and listening to his 
more elevated and generous ambition, as yet all unsullied 
by one private feeling save the hope of her, her higher 
sympathies were enlisted with his schemes, her mind as- 
pired to raise itself to the height of his, and she thought 
less of her own rise than of his glory. It was sweet to 
her pride to be the sole confidant of his most secret 
thoughts, as of his most hardy undertakings; to see 
bared before her that intricate and plotting spirit ; to be 
admitted even to the knowledge of its doubts and weak- 
ness, as of its heroism and power. 

Nothing could be more contrasted than the loves of 
Rienzi and Nina and those of Adrian and Irene. In the 
latter all were the dreams, the phantasies, the extrava- 
gance of youth ; they never talked of the future ; they 
mingled no other aspirations with those of love. Ambi- 
tion, glory, the world’s high objects, were nothing to 
them when together ; their love had swallowed up the 
world, and left nothing visible beneath the sun, save 
itself. But the passion of Nina and her lover was that 
of more complicated natures and more mature years: it 


I 


106 EIENZI, THE LAST OE THE TRIBUNES. 

was made up of a thousand feelings, each naturally 
severed from each, but compelled into one focus by the 
mighty concentration of love ; their talk was of the world ; 
it was from the world that they drew the aliment which 
sustained it ; it was of the future they spoke and thought ; 
of its dreams and imagined glories they made themselves 
a home and altar. Their love had in it more of the Intel- 
lectual than that of Adrian and Irene ; it was more fitted 
for this hard earth ; it had in it, also, more of the leaven 
of the later and iron days, and less of poetry and the first 
golden age. 

“ And must thou leave me now ? ” said Nina, her cheek 
no more averted from his lips, nor her form from his 
parting embrace. “ The moon is high yet ; it is but a 
little hour thou hast given me.” 

“ An hour ! Alas ! ” said Eienzi, “ it is near upon mid- 
night, — our friends await me.” 

“ Go, then, my souFs best half, go ! Nina shall not 
detain thee one moment from those higher objects which 
make thee so dear to Nina. When — when shall we 
meet again ? ” 

“Not,” said Eienzi, proudly, and with all his soul 
upon his brow, — “not thus, by stealth; no! nor as I thus 
have met thee, the obscure and contemned bondsman! 
When next thou seest me, it shall be at the head of the 
sons of Eome, her champion, her restorer ! or — ” said 
he, sinking his voice — 

“ There is no or ! ” interrupted Nina, weaving her arms 
round him and catching his enthusiasm ; “ thou hast ut- 
tered thine own destiny ! ” 

“ One kiss more ! — farewell ! — the tenth day from the 
morrow shines upon the restoration of Eome ! ” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 107 


CHAPTEK XII. 

The strange Adventures that befell Walter de Montreal. 

It was upon that same evening, and while the earlier 
stars yet shone over the city, that Walter de Montreal, 
returning alone to the convent then associated with the 
Church of Santa Maria del Priorata (both of which be- 
longed to the Knights of the Hospital, and in the first of 
which Montreal had taken his lodgment), paused amidst 
the ruins and desolation which lay around his path. 
Though little skilled in the classic memories and associa- 
tions of the spot, he could not but he impressed with the 
surrounding witnesses of departed empire, — the vast 
skeleton, as it were, of the dead giantess. 

“ How, ” thought he, as he gazed around upon the 
roofless columns and shattered walls, everywhere visible, 
over which the starlight shone, ghastly and transparent, 
backed by the frowning and embattled fortresses of the 
Frangipani, half hid by the dark foliage that sprang up 
amidst the very fanes and palaces of old, — Nature ex- 
ulting over the frailer Art, — ‘‘ now,” thought he, “ book- 
men would be inspired by this scene with fantastic and 
dreaming visions of the past. But to me these monu- 
ments of high ambition and royal splendor create only 
images of the future. Eome may yet be, with her seven- 
hilled diadem, as Eome has been before, the prize of the 
strongest hand and the boldest warrior, — revived, not by 
her own degenerate sons, but the infused blood of a new 


108 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


race. William the Bastard could scarce have found the 
hardy Englishers so easy a conquest as Walter the Well- 
horn may find these eunuch Eomans. And which conquest 
were the more glorious, — the barbarous Isle, or the 
Metropolis of the World? Short step from the general 
to the podesta, — shorter step from the podesta to the 
king! ” 

While thus revolving his wild yet not altogether 
chimerical ambition, a quick light step was heard 
amidst the long herbage, and, looking up, Montreal 
perceived the figure of a tall female descending from 
that part of the hill then covered by many convents, 
towards the base of the Aventine. She supported her 
steps with a long staff, and moved with such elasticity 
and erectness that now, as her face became visible by 
the starlight, it was surprising to perceive that it was 
the face of one advanced in years , — a harsh , proud 
countenance, withered and deeply wrinkled hut not 
without a certain regularity of outline. 

“Merciful Virgin! ” cried Montreal, starting hack as 
that face gleamed upon him ; “ is it possible ? It is she ! 
— it is — ” 

He sprang forward, and stood right before the old 
woman, who seemed equally surprised, though more 
dismayed, at the sight of Montreal. 

“ I have sought thee for years,” said the knight, first 
breaking the silence ; “ years, long years, — thy con- 
science can tell thee why.” 

“ Jfme, man of blood! ” cried the female, trembling 
with rage or fear ; “ darest thou talk of conscience ? 
ThoUy the dishonorer, the robber, the professed homi- 
cide! Thou, disgrace to knighthood and to birth! 
Thou, with the cross of chastity and of peace upon thy 
breast! Thou talk of conscience, hypocrite! — thou? ” 


HIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 109 


“Lady, lady!” said Montreal, deprecatingly, and 
almost quailing beneath the fiery passion of that feeble 
woman, “ I have sinned against thee and thine. But 
remember all my excuses! — early love, fatal obstacles, 
rash vow, — irresistible temptation! Perhaps,” he 
added in a more haughty tone, — “ perhaps yet I may 
have the power to atone my error, and wring with 
mailed hand from the successor of St. Peter, who hath 
power to loose as to bind — ” 

“ Perjured and abandoned! ” interrupted the female; 
“ dost thou dream that violence can purchase absolu- 
tion, or that thou canst ever atone the past? — a noble 
name disgraced, a father’s broken heart and dying curse ! 
Yes, that curse, I hear it now! it rings upon me thrill- 
ingly, as when I watched the expiring clay! it cleaves 
to thee, — it pursues thee; it shall pierce thee through 
thy corselet; it shall smite thee in the meridian of thy 
power! Genius wasted, ambition blasted, penitence 
deferred, a life of brawls, and a death of shame, — thy 
destruction the offspring of thy crime! To this, to this, 
an old man’s curse hath doomed thee! — And thou 

ART DOOMED ! ” 

These words were rather shrieked than spoken; and 
the flashing eye, the lifted hand, the dilated form of 
the speaker, the hour, the solitude of the ruins around, 
— all conspired to give to the fearful execration the 
character of prophecy. The warrior, against whose 
undaunted breast a hundred spears had shivered in 
vain, fell appalled and humbled to the ground. He 
seized the hem of his fierce denouncer’s robe, and 
cried, in a choked and hollow voice, “ Spare me! spare 
me!” 

" Spare thee ! ” said the unrelenting crone ; “ hast 
thou ever spared man in thy hatred, or woman in thy 


110 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


lust! Ah, grovel in the dust! — crouch, crouch! — wild 
beast as thou art! whose sleek skin and beautiful hues 
have taught the unwary to be blind to the talons that 
rend, and the grinders that devour, — crouch, that the 
foot of the old and impotent may spurn thee ! ” 

“ Hag ! ” cried Montreal, in the reaction of sudden 
fury and maddened pride, springing up to the full height 
of his stature. “ Hag ! thou hast passed the limits to 
which, remembering who thou art, my forbearance gave 
thee license. I had wellnigh forgot that thou hadst 
assumed my part, — I am the accuser ! Woman ! — the 
boy ! — shrink not, equivocate not, lie not ! — thou wert 
the thief ! ” 

“ I was. Thou taughtest me the lesson how to 
steal a — ” 

“Render — restore him!” interrupted Montreal, 
stamping on the ground with such force that the splin- 
ters of the marble fragments on which he stood shivered 
under his armed heel. 

The woman little heeded a violence at which the 
fiercest warrior of Italy might have trembled ; but she did 
not make an immediate answer. The character of her 
countenance altered from passion into an expression of 
grave, intent, and melancholy thought. At length she 
replied to Montreal, whose hand had wandered to his 
dagger-hilt, with the instinct of long habit, whenever 
enraged or thwarted, rather than from any design of 
blood; which, stern and vindictive as he was, he would 
have been inca jfSble of forming against any woman, 
much less against the one then before him. 

“ Walter de Montreal,” said she, in a voice so calm 
that it almost sounded like that of compassion, “ the 
boy, I think, has never known brother or sister: the 
only child of a once haughty and lordly race on both 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. Ill 

sides, though now on both dishonored, — nay, why so 
impatient ? Thou wilt soon learn the worst, — the boy 
is dead ! ” 

“Dead!” repeated Montreal, recoiling and growing 
pale ; “ dead ! — no, no, say not that ! He has a mother, 

— you know he has! — a fond, meek-hearted, anxious, 
hoping mother ! — no, no, he is not dead ! ” 

“ Thou canst feel, then, for a mother? ” said the old 
woman, seemingly touched by the tone of the Provengal. 
“Yet bethink thee; is it not better that the grave 
should save him from a life of riot, of bloodshed, and 
of crime ? Better to sleep with God than to wake with 
the fiends ! ” 

“ Dead ! ” echoed Montreal ; “ dead ! — the pretty one ! 

— so young ! — those eyes — the mother’s eyes — closed 
so soon ? ” 

“ Hast thou aught else to say ? Thy sight scares my 
very womanhood from my soul; let me he gone.” 

“ Dead ! — may I believe thee, or dost thou mock me ? 
Thou hast uttered thy curse, hearken to my warning: 
If thou hast lied in this, thy last hour shall dismay 
thee, and thy deathbed shall he the deathbed of 
despair ! ” 

“Thy lips,” replied the female, with a scornful 
smile, “are better adapted for lewd vows to unhappy 
maidens than for the denunciations which sound 
solemn only when coming from the good. Parewell ! ” 
“Stay, inexorable woman, stay! Where sleeps he? 
Masses shall be sung, priests shall pray ! — • the sins of 
the father shall not be visited on that young head ! ” 

“At Florence,” returned the woman, hastily. “But 
no stone records the departed one; the dead boy had 
no name ! ” 

Waiting for no further questionings, the woman now 


112 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


passed on, — pursued her way ; and the long herbage 
and the winding descent soon snatched her ill-omened 
apparition from the desolate landscape. 

Montreal, thus alone, sunk with a deep and heavy 
sigh upon the ground, covered his face with his hands, 
and burst into an agony of grief; his chest heaved, his 
whole frame trembled, and he wept and sobbed aloud, 
with all the fearful vehemence of a man whose passions 
are strong and fierce, but to whom the violence of grief 
alone is novel and unfamiliar. 

He remained thus, prostrate and unmanned, for a 
considerable time, growing slowly and gradually more 
calm, as tears relieved his emotion, and at length rather 
indulging a gloomy reverie than a passionate grief. 
The moon was high and the hour late when he arose, 
and then few traces of the past excitement remained 
upon his countenance; for Walter de Montreal was not 
of that mould in which woe can force a settlement, or 
to which any affliction can bring the continued and 
habitual melancholy that darkens those who feel more 
enduringly, though with emotions less stormy. His 
were the elements of the true Franc character, though 
carried to excess ; his sternest and his deepest qualities 
were mingled with fickleness and caprice ; his profound 
sagacity often frustrated by a whim ; his towering ambi- 
tion deserted for some frivolous temptation; and his 
elastic, sanguine, and high-spirited nature, faithful 
only to the desire of military glory, to the poetry of a 
daring and stormy life, and to the susceptibilities of that 
tender passion without whose colorings no portrait of 
chivalry is complete, and in which he was capable of a 
sentiment, a tenderness, and a loyal devotion which 
could hardly have been supposed compatible with his 
reckless levity and his undisciplined career. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 113 

“ Well,” said he, as he rose slowly, folded his mantle 
round him, and resumed his way, “ it was not for 
myself I grieved thus. But the pang is past, and the 
worst is known. Now, then, back to those things that 
never die, — restless projects and daring schemes! That 
hag’s curse keeps my blood cold still, and this solitude 
has something in it weird and awful. Ha ! what 
sudden light is that ? ” 

The light which caught Montreal’s eye broke forth 
almost like a star, scarcely larger, indeed, but more red 
and intense in its ray. Of itself it was nothing uncom- 
mon, and might have shone either from convent or 
cottage. But it streamed from a part of the Aventine 
which contained no habitations of the living, but only 
the empty ruins and shattered porticos, of which even 
the names and memories of the ancient inhabitants 
were dead. Aware of this, Montreal felt a slight awe 
(as the beam threw its steady light over the dreary land- 
scape) ; for he was not without the knightly supersti- 
tions of the age, and it was now the witching hour 
consecrated to ghost and spirit. But fear, whether of 
this world or the next, could not long daunt the mind 
of the hardy freebooter; and after a short hesitation 
he resolved to make a digression from his way, and 
ascertain the cause of the phenomenon. Unconsciously 
the martial tread of the barbarian passed over the site of 
the famed or infamous Temple of Isis, which had once 
witnessed those wildest orgies commemorated by Juve- 
nal; and came at last to a thick and dark copse, from 
an opening in the centre of which gleamed the myste- 
rious light. Penetrating the gloomy foliage, the knight 
now found himself before a large ruin, gray and roofless, 
from within which came, indistinct and muffled, the 

VOL. I. — 8 


114 KIENZI, THE LAST OE THE TRIBUNES. 

sound of voices. Through a rent in the wall, forming 
a kind of casement, and about ten feet from the ground, 
the light now broke over the matted and rank soil, 
embedded as it were in vast masses of shade, and 
streaming through a mouldering portico hard at hand. 
The Provencal stood, though he knew it not, on the very 
place once consecrated by the Temple, — the Portico 
and the Library of Liberty (the first public library 
instituted in Pome). The wall of the ruin was covered 
with innumerable creepers and wild brushwood, and 
it required but little agility on the part of Montreal, 
by the help of these, to raise himself to the height of 
the aperture, and, concealed by the luxuriant foliage, 
to gaze within. He saw a table, lighted with tapers, in 
the centre of which was a crucifix ; a dagger, unsheathed; 
an open scroll, which the event proved to be of sacred 
character; and a brazen bowl. About a hundred men, 
in cloaks, and with black vizards, stood motionless 
around; and one, taller than the rest, without disguise 
or mask, — whose pale brow and stern features seemed 
by that light yet paler and yet more stern, — appeared 
to be concluding some address to his companions. 

“Yes,” said he, “in the church of the Lateran I 
will make the last appeal to the people. Supported by 
the Vicar of the Pope, myself an officer of the Pontiff, 
it will be seen that Keligion and Liberty — the heroes 
and the martyrs — are united in one cause. After that 
time words are idle; action must begin. By this 
crucifix I pledge my faith, on this blade I devote my 
life, to the regeneration of Pome ! And you (then no 
need for mask or mantle ! ) when the solitary trump is 
heard, when the solitary horseman is seen, — you swear 
to rally round the standard of the Pepublic, and resist 
— with heart and hand, with life and soul, in defiance 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 115 


of death , and in hope of redemption — the arms of the 
oppressor ! ” 

“ We swear, we swear! ” exclaimed every voice; and, 
crowding toward cross and weapon, the tapers were 
obscured by the intervening throng, and Montreal could 
not perceive the ceremony, nor hear the muttered for- 
mula of the oath : but he could guess that the rite then 
common to conspiracies — and which required each con- 
spirator to shed some drops of his own blood, in token 
that life itself was devoted to the enterprise — had not 
been omitted; when, the group again receding, the 
same figure as before had addressed the meeting, holding 
on high the bowl with both hands, — while from the left 
arm, which was bared, the blood weltered slowly, and 
trickled, drop by drop, upon the ground, — said, in a 
solemn voice and upturned eyes, — 

“Amidst the ruins of thy temple, O Liberty! we, 
Romans, dedicate to thee this libation ! We, befriended 
and inspired by no unreal and fabled idols, but by the 
Lord of Hosts, and Him who, descending to earth, ap- 
pealed not to emperors and to princes, but to the fisher- 
man and the peasant, — giving to the lowly and the poor 
the mission of Revelation.” Then, turning suddenly to 
his companions, as his features, singularly varying in 
their character and expression, brightened from solemn 
awe into a martial and kindling enthusiasm, he cried 
aloud, “ Heath to the Tyranny ! Life to the Republic ! ” 
The effect of the transition was startling. Each man, 
as by an involuntary and irresistible impulse, laid his 
hand upon his sword, as he echoed the sentiment; 
some, indeed, drew forth their blades, as if for instant 
action. 

“I have seen enow; they will break up anon,” said 
Montreal to himself, “ and I would rather face an army 


116 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

of thousands than even half-a-dozen enthusiasts so 
inflamed, and I thus detected.” And with this 
thought he dropped on the ground, and glided away, 
as once again, through the still midnight air, broke 
upon his ear the muffled shout, “ Death to the 
Tyranny ! Life to the Eepublic ! ” 


BOOK II. 


THE REVOLUTION. 

Ogni lascivia, ogni male ; nulla giustizia, nullo freno. Non c’ era 
pill remedia, ogni persona periva. AUora Cola di Kienzi, etc. — 
Vita di Cola di Rienzi, lib. i. cap. ii. 

Every kind of lewdness, every form of evil ; no justice, no re- 
straint. Remedy there was none ; perdition fell on all. Then Cola 
di Rienzi, etc. — Life of Cola di Rienzi. 



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BOOK II. 


CHAPTEE I. 

The I^night of Provence and his Proposal. 

It was nearly noon as Adrian entered the gates of the 
palace of Stephen Colonna. The palaces of the nobles 
were not then, as we see them now, receptacles for the 
immortal canvas of Italian, and the imperishable sculp- 
ture of Grecian Art ; but still to this day are retained the 
massive walls and barred windows and spacious courts 
which at that time protected their rude retainers. High 
above the gates rose a lofty and solid tower, whose height 
commanded a wide view of the mutilated remains of 
Rome : the gate itself was adorned and strengthened on 
either side by columns of granite, whose Doric capitals 
betrayed the sacrilege that had torn them from one of the 
many temples that had formerly crowded the sacred 
Forum. From the same spoils came, too, the vast frag- 
ments of travertine which made the walls of the outer 
court. So common at that day were these barbarous 
appropriations of the most precious monuments of art, 
that the columns and domes of earlier Rome were re- 
garded by all classes but as quarries, from which every 
man was free to gather the materials, whether for his 
castle or his cottage, — a wantonness of outrage far 
greater than the Goths, to whom a later age would fain 
have attributed all the disgrace, and which, more perhaps 


120 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


than even heavier offences, excited the classical indigna- 
tion of Petrarch, and made him sympathize with Kienzi 
in his hopes of Kome. Still may you see the churches 
of that or even earlier dates, of the most shapeless archi- 
tecture, built on the sites, and from the marbles, con- 
secrating (rather than consecrated by) the names of 
Venus, of Jupiter, of Minerva. The palace of the 
Prince of the Orsini, Duke of Gravina, is yet reared 
above the graceful arches (still visible) of the theatre of 
Marcellus, then a fortress of the Savelli. 

As Adrian passed the court, a heavy wagon blocked 
up the way, laden with huge marbles dug from the 
unexhausted mine of the Golden House of Hero: they 
were intended for an additional tower by which Stephen 
Colonna proposed yet more to strengthen the tasteless and 
barbarous edifice in which the old noble maintained the 
dignity of outraging the law. 

The friend of Petrarch and the pupil of Pienzi sighed 
deeply as he passed this vehicle of new spoliations, and as 
a pillar of fluted alabaster, rolling carelessly from the 
wagon, fell with a loud crash upon the pavement. At 
the foot of the stairs grouped some dozen of the bandits 
whom the old Colonna entertained: they were playing at 
dice upon an ancient tomb, the clear and deep inscription 
on which (so different from the slovenly character of the 
later empire) bespoke it a memorial of the most powerful 
age of Pome, and which, now empty even of ashes, and 
upset, served for a table to these foreign savages, and 
was strewn, even at that early hour, with fragments of 
meat and flasks of wine. They scarcely stirred, they 
scarcely looked up, as the young noble passed them; 
and their fierce oaths and loud ejaculations, uttered in 
a northern patois^ grated harsh upon his ear, as he 
mounted with a slow step the lofty and unclean stairs. 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 121 

He came into a vast antechamber, which was half filled 
with the higher class of the patrician’s retainers: some 
five or six pages, chosen "from the inferior noblesse, 
congregated by a narrow and deep-sunk casement, were 
discussing the grave matters of gallantry and intrigue; 
three petty chieftains of the hand below, with their 
corselets donned, and their swords and casques beside 
them, were sitting, stolid and silent, at a table, in the 
middle of the room, and might have been taken for 
automatons, save for the solemn regularity with which 
they ever and anon lifted to their mustachioed lips their 
several goblets, and then with a complacent grunt 
resettled to their contemplations. Striking was the 
contrast which their northern phlegm presented to a 
crowd of Italian clients and petitioners and parasites, 
who walked restlessly to and fro, talking loudly to each 
other with all the vehement gestures and varying physiog- 
nomy of southern vivacity. There was a general stir 
and sensation as Adrian broke upon this miscellaneous 
company. The bandit captains nodded their heads 
mechanically ; the pages bowed, and admired the fashion 
of his plume and hose; the clients and petitioners and 
parasites crowded round him, each with a separate 
request for interest with his potent kinsman. Great 
need had Adrian of his wonted urbanity and address, in 
extricating himself from their grasp ; and painfully did he 
win at last the low and narrow door, at which stood a 
tall servitor, who admitted or rejected the applicants 
according to his interest or caprice. 

“ Is the baron alone ? ” asked Adrian. 

“ Why, no, my lord : a foreign signor is with him, — - 
but to you he is of course visible.” 

“ Well, you may admit me. I would inquire of his 
health.” 


122 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


The servitor opened the door, — through whose aper- 
ture peered many a jealous and wistful eye, — and con- 
signed Adrian to the guidance of a page who, older and 
of greater esteem than the loiterers in the anteroom, was 
the especial henchman of the lord of the castle. Passing 
another, but empty chamber, vast and dreary, Adrian 
found himself in a small cabinet, and in the presence of 
his kinsman. 

Before a table hearing the implements of writing, sat 
the old Colonna; a robe of rich furs and velvet hung 
loose upon his tall and stately frame ; from a round skull- 
cap, of comforting warmth and crimson hue, a few gray 
locks descended, and mixed with a long and reverent 
heard. The countenance of the aged noble, who had long 
passed his eightieth year, still retained the traces of a 
comeliness for which in earlier manhood he was remark- 
able. His eyes, if deep-sunken, were still keen and 
lively, and sparkled with all the fire of youth; his mouth 
curved upward in a pleasant though half-satiric smile; 
and his appearance, on the whole, was prepossessing and 
commanding, indicating rather the high blood, the shrewd 
wit, and the gallant valour of the patrician than his 
craft, hypocrisy, and habitual but disdainful spirit of 
oppression. 

Stephen Colonna, without being absolutely a hero, 
was indeed far braver than most of the Bomans, though 
he held fast to the Italian maxim, never to fight an 
enemy while it is possible to cheat him. Two faults, 
however, marred the effect of his sagacity : a supreme 
insolence of disposition, and a profound belief in the 
lights of his experience. He was incapable of analogy. 
What had never happened in his time, he was perfectly 
persuaded never could happen. Thus, though generally 
esteemed an able diplomatist, he had the cunning of the 


RIEN2I, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 123 


intriguant, and not the providence of a statesman. If, 
however, pride made him arrogant in prosperity, it sup- 
ported him in misfortune. And in the earlier vicissitudes 
of a life which had partly been consumed in exile, he 
had developed many noble qualities of fortitude, endur- 
ance, and real greatness of soul, which showed that his fail- 
ings were rather acquired by circumstance than derived 
from nature. His numerous and high-born race were 
proud of their chief, — and with justice; for he was the 
ablest and most honored, not only of the direct branch of 
the Colonna, hut also, perhaps, of all the more powerful 
barons. 

Seated at the same table with Stephen Colonna was a 
man of noble presence, of about three or four and thirty 
years of age, in whom Adrian instantly recognized Walter 
de Montreal. This celebrated knight was scarcely of the 
personal appearance which might have corresponded with 
the terror his name generally excited. His face was 
handsome, almost to the extreme of womanish delicacy. 
His fair hair waved long and freely over a white and 
unwrinkled forehead : the life of a camp and the suns of 
Italy had but little^ embrowned his clear and healthful 
complexion, which retained much of the bloom of youth. 
His features were aquiline and regular ; his eyes, of a light 
hazel, were large, bright, and penetrating; and a short 
but curled beard and mustache, trimmed with soldierlike 
precision, and very little darker than the hair, gave 
indeed a martial expression to his comely countenance, 
but rather the expression which might have suited the 
hero of courts and tournaments than the chief of a 
brigand’s camp. The aspect, manner, and bearing of 
the Provencal were those which captivate rather than 
awe, — blending, as they did, a certain military frank- 
ness with the easy and graceful dignity of one conscious 


124 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TKIBUNES. 

of gentle birth, and accustomed to mix on equal terms 
with the great and noble. His form happily contrasted 
and elevated the character of a countenance which 
required strength and stature to free its uncommon 
beauty from the charge of effeminacy, being of great 
height and remarkable muscular power, without the least 
approach to clumsy and unwieldy bulk : it erred, indeed, 
rather to the side of leanness than flesh, — at once robust 
and slender. But the chief personal distinction of this 
warrior, the most redoubted lance of Italy, was an air 
and carriage of chivalric and heroic grace, greatly set off 
at this time by his splendid dress, which was of brown 
velvet sown with pearls, over which hung the surcoat 
worn by the Knights of the Hospital, whereon was 
wrought, in white, the eight-pointed cross that made the 
badge of his order. The knight’s attitude was that of 
earnest conversation, bending slightly forward towards 
the Colonna, and resting both his hands — which 
(according to the usual distinction of the old Norman 
race,^ from whom, though born in Provence, Montreal 
boasted his descent) were small and delicate, the fingers 
being covered with jewels, as was the fashion of the day 
— upon the golden hilt of an enormous sword, on the 
sheath of which was elaborately wrought the silver lilies 
that made the device of the Provencal Brotherhood of 
Jerusalem. 

“ Good morrow, fair kinsman ! ” said Stephen. “ Seat 
thyself, I pray; and know in this knightly visitor the 
celebrated Sieur de Montreal.” 

1 Small hands and feet, however disproporbioned to the rest of 
the person, were at that time deemed no less a distinction of the 
well-born than they have been in a more refined age. Many 
readers will remember the pain occasioned to Petrarch by his tight 
shoes. The supposed beauty of this peculiarity is more derived 
from the feudal than the classic time. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 125 


“ Ah, my lord, ” said Montreal, smiling, as he saluted 
Adrian ; “ and how is my lady at home ? ” 

“You mistake, sir knight,” quoth Stephen; “my 
young kinsman is not yet married : ^faith, as Pope 
Boniface remarked, when he lay stretched on a sick-bed, 
and his confessor talked to him about Abraham’s bosom, 
‘ that is a pleasure the greater for being deferred. ’ ” 

“ The signor will pardon my mistake, ” returned 
Montreal. 

“ But not, ” said Adrian, “ the neglect of Sir Walter 
in not ascertaining the fact in person. My thanks to 
him, noble kinsman, are greater than you weet of ; and 
he promised to visit me, that he might receive them at 
leisure. ” 

“ I assure you, signor, ” answered Montreal, “ that I 
have not forgotten the invitation; but so weighty hith- 
erto have been my affairs at Rome, that I have been 
obliged to parley with my impatience to better our 
acquaintance.” 

“ Oh, ye knew each other before ! ” said Stephen. 
“ And how? ” 

“ My lord, there is a damsel in the case ! ” replied 
Montreal. “ Excuse my silence. ” 

“ Ah, Adrian, Adrian ! when will you learn my con- 
tinence ? ” said Stephen, solemnly stroking his gray 
beard. “ What an example I set you ! But a truce to 
this light conversation, — let us resume our theme. 
You must know, Adrian, that it is to the brave band of 
my guest I am indebted for those valiant gentlemen 
below, who keep Rome so quiet, though my poor habita- 
tion so noisy. He has called to proffer more assistance, 
if need be ; and to advise me on the affairs of northern 
Italy. Continue, I pray thee, sir knight; I have no 
disguises from my kinsman. ” 


126 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“Thou seest,” said Montreal, fixing his penetrating 
eyes on Adrian, — “thou seest, doubtless, my lord, 
that Italy at this moment presents to us a remarkable 
spectacle. It is a contest between two opposing powers, 
which shall destroy the other. The one power is that 
of the unruly and turbulent people, — a power which 
they call ‘ Liberty ; ’ the other power is that of the 
chiefs and princes, — a power which they more appro- 
priately call * Order.’ Between these parties the cities 
of Italy are divided. In Florence, in Genoa, in Pisa, 
for instance, is established a Free State, — a Pepuhlic, 
God wot! and a more riotous, unhappy state of govern- 
ment cannot well he imagined. ” 

“That is perfectly true,” quoth Stephen; “they 
banished my own first cousin from Genoa.” 

“A perpetual strife, in short,” continued Montreal, 
“ between the great families ; an alternation of prosecu- 
tions and confiscations and banishments : to-day the 
Guelphs proscribe the Ghibellines, — to-morrow the 
Ghibellines drive out the Guelphs. This may be 
liberty, but it is the liberty of the strong against the 
weak. In the other cities, as Milan, as Verona, as 
Bologna, the people are under the rule of one man, — 
who calls himself a prince, and whom his enemies call 
a tyrant. Having more force than any other citizen, 
he preserves a firm government; having more constant 
demand on his intellect and energies than the other 
citizens, he also preserves a wise one. These two 
orders of government are enlisted against each other; 
whenever the people in the one rebel against their 
prince, the people of the other — that is, the Free 
States — send arms and money to their assistance. ” 

“ You hear, Adrian, how wicked those last are,” 
quoth Stephen. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 127 


"Now, it seems to me,” continued Montreal, ^‘that 
this contest must end some time or other. All Italy 
must become republican or monarchical. It is easy to 
predict which will be the result. ” 

" Yes, liberty must conquer in the end! ” said Adrian, 
warmly. 

“Pardon me, young lord; my opinion is entirely the 
reverse. You perceive that these republics are commer- 
cial, — are traders; they esteem wealth, they despise 
valor, they cultivate all trades save that of the armorer. 
Accordingly, how do they maintain themselves in war? 
By their own citizens? Not a whit of it! Either 
they send to some foreign chief, and promise, if he 
grant them his protection, the principality of the city 
for five or ten years in return; or else they borrow, 
from some hardy adventurer like myself, as many troops 
as they can afford to pay for. Is it not so. Lord 
Adrian?” 

Adrian nodded his reluctant assent. 

" Well, then, it is the fault of the foreign chief if he 
do not make his power permanent ; as has been already 
done in states once free by the Visconti and the Scala: 
or else it is the fault of the captain of the mercenaries 
if he do not convert his brigands into senators, and him- 
self into a king. These are events so natural that one 
day or other they will occur throughout all Italy. And 
all Italy will then become monarchical. Now it seems 
to me the interest of all the powerful families — your 
own at Pome, as that of the Visconti at Milan — to 
expedite this epoch, and to check, while you yet may 
with ease, that rebellious contagion amon^t the people 
which is now rapidly spreading, and which ends in the 
fever of license to them, but in the corruption of death 
to you. In these Free States the nobles are the first 


128 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

to suffer: first your privileges, then your property, are 
swept away. Nay, in Florence, as ye well know, my 
lords, no noble is even capable of holding the meanest 
office in the state. ” 

“ Villains! ” said Colonna, — “ they violate the first 
law of Nature! ” 

“ At this moment,” resumed Montreal, who, engrossed 
with his subject, little heeded the interruptions he 
received from the holy indignation of the baron, — “ at 
this moment there are many — the wisest, perhaps, in 
the Free States — who desire to renew the old Lombard 
leagues, in defence of their common freedom everywhere, 
and against whosoever shall aspire to he prince. For- 
tunately, the deadly jealousies between these merchant 
states — the base plebeian jealousies , more of trade than 
of glory — interpose at present an irresistible obstacle 
to this design ; and Florence , the most stirring and the 
most esteemed of all, is happily so reduced by reverses 
of commerce as to be utterly unable to follow out so 
great an undertaking. Now, then, is the time for us, 
my lords; while these obstacles are so great for our foes, 
now is the time for us to form and cement a counter- 
league between all the princes of Italy. To you, noble 
Stephen, I have come, as your rank demands, — alone, 
of all the barons of Kome, — to propose to you this 
honorable union. Observe what advantages it proffers 
to your house. The popes have abandoned Eome for- 
ever; there is no counterpoise to your ambition, — there 
need be none to your power. You see before you the 
examples of Visconti and Taddeo di Pepoli. You may 
found in Eome, the first city of Italy, a supreme and 
uncontrolled principality ; subjugate utterly your weaker 
rivals, — the Savelli, the Malatesta, the Orsini; and 
leave to your sons’ sons an hereditary kingdom that 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 129 

may aspire once more, perhaps, to the empire of the 
world.” 

Stephen shaded his face with his hand as he answered: 

But this, noble Montreal, requires means, — money 
and men.” 

“ Of the last, you can command from me enow, — my 
small company, the best disciplined, can (whenever I 
please) swell to the most numerous in Italy: in the 
first, noble baron, the rich house of Colonna cannot 
fail; and even a mortgage on its vast estates may be 
well repaid when you have possessed yourselves of the 
whole revenues of Rome. You see,” continued Mon- 
treal, turning to Adrian, in whose youth he expected a 
more warm ally than in his hoary kinsman, — “ you see, 
at a glance, how feasible is this project, and what a 
mighty field it opens to your house.” 

“ Sir Walter de Montreal,” said Adrian, rising from 
his seat, and giving vent to the indignation he had 
with difficulty suppressed, “ I grieve much that, beneath 
the roof of the first citizen of Rome, a stranger should 
attempt thus calmly, and without interruption, to 
excite the ambition of emulating the execrated celebrity 
of a Visconti or a Pepoli. Speak, my lord! ” (turning 
to Stephen) — “speak, noble kinsman! and tell this 
knight of Provence that if by a Colonna the ancient 
grandeur of Rome cannot be restored, it shall not he, 
at least, by a Colonna that her last wrecks of liberty 
shall be swept away.” 

“How now, Adrian! — how now, sweet kinsman!” 
said Stephen, thus suddenly appealed to; “ calm thyself, 
I pr’ythee. Hohle Sir Walter, he is young, — young 
and hasty : he means not to offend thee. ” 

“ Of that I am persuaded,” returned Montreal, coldly, 
but with great and courteous command of temper. “ He 

VOL. I. — 9 



130 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

speaks from the impulse of the moment, — a praise- 
worthy fault in youth. It was mine at his age, and 
many a time have I nearly lost my life for the rashness. 
Kay, signor, nay! — touch not your sword so meaningly, 
as if you fancied I intimated a threat; far from me such 
presumption. I have learned sufficient caution, believe 
me, in the wars, not wantonly to draw against me a 
blade which I have seen wielded against such odds.” 

Touched, despite himself, by the courtesy of the 
knight, and the allusion to a scene in which, perhaps, 
his life had been preserved by Montreal, Adrian 
extended his hand to the latter. 

“I was to blame for my haste,” said he, frankly; 
“hut know, by my very heat,” he added more gravely, 
“that your project will find no friends among the 
Colonna. Kay, in the presence of my noble kinsman, I 
dare to tell you that could even his high sanction lend 
itself to such a scheme, the best hearts of his house 
would desert him; and I myself, his kinsman, would 
man yonder castle against so unnatural an ambition ! ” 

A slight and scarce perceptible cloud passed over 
Montreal’s countenance at these words; and he bit his 
lip ere he replied, — 

“ Yet if the Orsini be less scrupulous, their first 
exertion of power would be heard in the crashing house 
of the Colonna. ” 

“Know you,” returned Adrian, “that one of our 
mottoes is this haughty address to the Komans, — ‘ if 
we fall, ye fall also! ’ And better that fate than a rise 
upon the wrecks of her native city ! ” 

“Well, well, well!” said Montreal, reseating him- 
self, “ I see that I must leave Kome to herself, — the 
League must thrive without her aid. I did but jest 
touching the Orsini, for they have not the power that 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 131 


would make their efforts safe. Let us sweep, then, our 
past conference from our recollection. It is the nine- 
teenth, I think. Lord Colonna, on which you propose to 
repair to Conieto with your friends and retainers, and 
on which you have invited my attendance 1 ” 

“ It is on that day, sir knight,” replied the baron, 
evidently much relieved by the turn the conversation 
had assumed. “ The fact is, that we have been so 
charged with indifference to the interests of the good 
people, that I strain a point in this expedition to con- 
tradict the assertion; and we propose, therefore, to escort 
and protect, against the robbers of the road, a convoy of 
corn to Corneto. In truth, I may add another reason, 
besides fear of the robbers, that makes me desire as 
numerous a train as possible. I wish to show my ene- 
mies and the people generally, the solid and growing 
power of my house ; the display of such an armed band 
as I hope to levy will be a magnificent occasion to 
strike awe into the riotous and refractory. Adrian, you 
will collect your servitors, I trust, on that day; we 
would not be without you. ” 

“And as we ride along, fair signor,” said Montreal, 
inclining to Adrian, “ we will find at least one subject 
on which we can agree : all brave men and true knights 
have one common topic, — and its name is Woman. 
You must make me acquainted with the names of the 
fairest dames of Eome; and we will discuss old adven- 
tures in ^the Parliament of Love, and hope for new. 
By the way, I suppose. Lord Adrian, you, with the rest 
of your countrymen, are Petrarch-stricken? ” 

“ Do you not share our enthusiasm ? Slur not so your 
gallantry, I pray you.” 

“Come, we must not again disagree; but, by my 
halidame, I think one troubadour roundel worth all 


132 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


that Petrarch ever wrote. He has but borrowed from oui 
knightly poesy, to disguise it, like a carpet coxcomb.” 

“ Well,” said Adrian, gayly, “ for every line of the 
troubadours that you quote, I will cite you another. I 
will forgive you for injustice to Petrarch, if you are 
just to the troubadours.” 

“Just!” cried Montreal, with real enthusiasm: “I 
am of the land, nay, the very blood of the troubadour! 
But we grow too light for your noble kinsman ! and it is 
time for me to bid you, for the present, farewell. My 
lord Colonna, peace be with you; farewell. Sir Adrian, 
— brother mine in knighthood, — remember your 
challenge.” 

And with an easy and careless grace the Knight of St. 
John took his leave. The old baron, making a dumb 
sign of excuse to Adrian, followed Montreal into the 
adjoining room. 

“ Sir knight ! ” said he, “ sir knight 1 ” as he closed 
the door upon Adrian, and then drew Montreal to the 
recess of the casement, — “a word in your ear. Think 
not I slight your offer, but these young men must be 
managed. The plot is great, noble, grateful to my heart; 
but it requires time and caution. I have many of my 
house, scrupulous as yon hotskull, to win over; the way 
is pleasant, but must be sounded well and carefully: 
you understand 1 ” 

From under his bent broAvs , Montreal darted one keen 
glance at Stephen, and then answered, — 

“ My friendship for you dictated my offer. The 
League may stand without the Colonna, — beware a 
time when the Colonna cannot stand without the 
League. My lord, look well around you; there are 
more freemen — ay, bold and stirring ones too — in 
Borne than you imagine. Beware Bienzi 1 Adieu, 
we meet soon again.” 


EIENZI/THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 133 


Thus saying, Montreal departed, soliloquizing as he 
passed with his careless step through the crowded 
anteroom, — 

“ I shall fail here ! — these caitiff nobles have neither 
the courage to he great, nor the wisdom to he honest. 
Let them fall! — 1 may find an adventurer from the 
people, an adventurer like myself, worth them all.” 

No sooner had Stephen returned to Adrian than he 
flung his arms affectionately round his ward, who was 
preparing his pride for some sharp rebuke for his 
petulance. 

“ Nobly feigned, — admirable, admirable ! ” cried the 
baron ; “ you have learned the true art of a statesman at 
the emperor’s court. I always thought you would, — 
always said it. You saw the dilemma I was in, thus 
taken by surprise by that barbarian’s mad scheme, — 
afraid to refuse, more afraid to accept. You extri- 
cated me with consummate address ; that passion — so 
natural to your age — was a famous feint, drew off the 
attack, gave me time to breathe, allowed me to play 
with the savage. But we must not offend him, you 
know; all my retainers would desert me, or sell me to 
the Orsini, or cut my throat, if he but held up his 
finger. Oh, it was admirably managed, Adrian, — 
admirably 1 ” 

“ Thank Heaven,” said Adrian, with some difficulty 
recovering the breath which his astonishment had 
taken away , “ you do not think of embracing that black 
proposition I ” 

“Think of it! no, indeed,” said Stephen, throwing 
himself back on his chair. “ Why, do you not know 
my age, boy? Hard on my ninetieth year, I should 
be a fool indeed to throw myself into such a whirl of 
turbulence and agitation. I want to keep what I have, 


134 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

not risk it by grasping more. Am I not the beloved of 
the pope 1 Shall I hazard his excommunication ? Am 
I not the most powerful of the nobles? Should I be 
more if I were king ? At my age, to talk to me of such 
stuff! — the man’s an idiot. Besides,” added the old 
man, sinking his voice, and looking fearfully round, 
“ if I were a king, my sons might poison me for the 
succession. They are good lads, Adrian, very ! But 
such a temptation ! — I would not throw it in their 
way ; these gray hairs have experience ! Tyrants don’t 
die a natural death ; no, no ! Plague on the knight, say 
I; he has already cast me into a cold sweat.” 

Adrian gazed on the working features of the old man, 
whose selfishness thus preserved him from crime. He 
listened to his concluding words, — full of the dark 
truth of the times; and as the high and pure ambition 
of Bienzi flashed upon him in contrast, he felt that he 
could not blame its fervor, or wonder at its excess. 

“And then, too,” resumed the baron, speaking more 
deliberately as he recovered his self-possession, “ this 
man, by way of a warning, shows me at a glance his 
whole ignorance of the state. What think you ? he has 
mingled with the mob, and taken their rank breath for 
power; yes, he thinks words are soldiers, and bade me 
— me, Stephen Colonna — beware — of whom, think 
you ? No, you will never guess ! — of that speech-maker, 
Bienzi I my own old jesting guest! Ha, ha, ha! the 
ignorance of these barbarians ! ha, ha, ha ! ” and the 
old man laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. 

“Yet many of the nobles fear that same Bienzi,” 
said Adrian, gravely. 

“ Ah, let them, let them ! — they have not our expe- 
rience, — our knowledge of the world, Adrian. Tut, 
man, when did declamation ever overthrow castles, and 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 135 


conquer soldiery ? I like Eienzi to harangue the mob 
about old Home and such stuff ; it gives them some- 
thing to think of and prate about, and so all their fierce- 
ness evaporates in words : they might burn a house if 
they did not hear a speech. But now I am on that 
score, I must own the pedant has grown impudent in 
his new office; here, here, — I received this paper ere 
I rose to-day. I hear a similar insolence has been 
shown to all the nobles. Read it, will you? ” and the 
Colonna put a scroll into his kinsman’s hand. 

" I have received the like,’^ said Adrian, glancing at 
it. " It is a request of Rienzi’s to attend at the Church 
of St. John of Lateran, to hear explained the inscrip- 
tion on a table just discovered. It bears, he saith, the 
most intimate connection with the welfare and state of 
Rome. ” 

“Very entertaining, I dare to say, to professors and 
bookmen. Pardon me, kinsman: I forgot your taste 
for these things; and my son Gianni, too, shares your 
fantasy. Well, well! it is innocent enough! Go — 
the man talks well.” 

“ Will you not attend too? ” 

“ I, my dear boy, — I ! ” said the old Colonna, opening 
his eyes in such astonishment that Adrian could not 
help laughing at the simplicity of his own question. 


136 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTEK n. 

The Interview and the Doubt. 

As Adrian turned from the palace of his guardian, and 
bent his way in the direction of the Forum, he came 
somewhat unexpectedly upon Paimond, Bishop of 
Orvietto, who, mounted upon a low palfrey, and accom- 
panied by some three or four of his waiting-men, halted 
abruptly when he recognized the young noble. 

“ Ah, my son ! it is seldom that I see thee : how 
fares it with thee — well? So, so! I rejoice to hear 
it. Alas! what a state of society is ours, when com- 
pared to the tranquil pleasures of Avignon ! There all 
men who, like us, are fond of the same pursuits, the 
same studies, delicice musarum, hum! hum! ” (the 
bishop was proud of an occasional quotation, right or 
wrong), “ are brought easily and naturally together. But 
here we scarcely dare stir out of our houses, save upon 
great occasions. But talking of great occasions and 
the Muses, reminds me of our good Kienzi’s invitation 
to the Lateran : of course you will attend; ’t is a mighty 
knotty piece of Latin he proposes to solve, — so I hear, 
at least; very interesting to us, my son, — very.” 

“It is to-morrow,” answered Adrian. “Yes, assur- 
edly: I will be there.” 

“And harkye, my son,” said the bishop, resting his 
hand affectionately on Adrian’s shoulder, “ I have reason 
to hope that he will remind our poor citizens of the 
Jubilee for the year Fifty, and stir them towards clearing 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 137 


the road of the brigands: a necessary injunction, and 
one to be heeded timeously ; for who will come here for 
absolution when he stands a chance of rushing unan- 
nealed upon purgatory by the way ? You have heard 
Rienzi, ay? Quite a Cicero, — quite! Well, Heaven 
bless you, my son! you will not fail? ” 

« Nay, not I.’’ 

“Yet, stay, — a word with you: just suggest to all 
whom you may meet the advisability of a full meet- 
ing; it looks well for the city to show respect to 
letters. ” 

“ To say nothing of the Jubilee,” added Adrian, 
smiling. 

“Ah, to say nothing of the Jubilee, — very good! 
Adieu for the present! ” And the bishop, resettling 
himself on his saddle, ambled solemnly on to visit his 
various friends, and press them to the meeting. 

Meanwhile Adrian continued his course till he had 
passed the Capitol, the Arch of Severus, the crumbling 
columns of the fane of Jupiter, and found himself amidst 
the long grass, the whispering reeds, and the neglected 
vines that wave over the now-vanished pomp of the 
Golden House of Nero. Seating himself on a fallen 
pillar, — by that spot where the traveller descends to 
the (so-called) Baths of Livia, — he looked impatiently 
to the sun, as if to blame it for the slowness of its 
march. 

Not long, however, had he to wait before a light step 
was heard crushing the fragrant grass; and presently 
through the arching vines gleamed a face that might 
well have seemed the nymph, the goddess of the scene. 

“ My beautiful ! my Irene ! — how shall I thank 
thee! ” 

It was long before the delighted lover suffered him- 


138 RIENZT, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

self to observe upon Irene’s face a sadness that did not 
usually cloud it in his presence. Her voice, too, 
trembled; her words seemed constrained and cold. 

“ Have I offended thee ? ” he asked ; “ or what less 
misfortune hath occurred 1 ” 

Irene raised her eyes to her lover’s, and said, looking 
at him earnestly, “Tell me, my lord, in sober and 
simple truth, tell me, would it grieve thee much were 
this to be our last meeting ? ” 

Paler than the marble at his feet grew the dark cheek 
of Adrian. It was some moments ere he could reply, 
and he did so then with a forced smile and a quivering 
lip. 

“Jest not so, Irene! Last! — that is not a word 
for us ! ” 

“ But hear me , my lord — ” 

“ Why so cold 1 Call me Adrian ! — friend ! — lover ! 
or be dumb ! ” 

“Well, then, my soul’s soul! myall of hope! my 
life’s life ! ” exclaimed Irene, passionately, “ hear me ! 
I fear that we stand at this moment upon some gulf, 
whose depth I see not, but which may divide us forever ! 
Thou knowest the real nature of my brother, and dost 
not misread him as many do. Long has he planned 
and schemed, ai^d communed with himself, and, feeling 
his way amidst the people, prepared the path to some 
great design. But now (thou wilt not betray, thou 
wilt not injure him ? — he is thy friend ! ) — ” 

“ And thy brother ! I would give my life for his ! 
Say on ! ” 

“But now, then,” resumed Irene, “the time for that 
enterprise, whatever it be, is coming fast. I know not 
of its exact nature, but I know that it is against the 
nobles, — against thy order, against thy house itself! 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 139 


If it succeed , — oh , Adrian ! thou thyself mayst not be 
free from danger; and my name, at least, will be coupled 
with the name of thy foes. If it fail, — my brother, 
my bold brother, is swept away ! He will fall a victim 
to revenge or justice, call it as you will. Your kins- 
man may be his judge, his executioner; and I — even 
if I should ^et live to mourn over the boast and glory 
of my humble line, could I permit myself to love, 
to see, one in whose veins flowed the blood of his 
destroyer? Oh, I am wretched, wretched! These 
thoughts make me wellnigh mad! ” and, wringing her 
hands bitterly, Irene sobbed aloud. 

Adrian himself was struck forcibly by the picture 
thus presented to him, although the alternative it 
embraced had often before forced itself dimly on his 
mind. It was true, however, that, not seeing the 
schemes of Hienzi backed by any physical power, and 
never yet having witnessed the mighty force of a moral 
revolution, he did not conceive that any rise to which 
he might instigate the people could be permanently 
successful; and as for his punishment in that city, 
where all justice was the slave of interest, Adrian knew 
himself powerful enough to obtain forgiveness even for 
the greatest of all crimes, — armed insurrection against 
the nobles. As these thoughts recurred to him, he 
gained the courage to console and cheer Irene. But 
his efforts were only partially successful. Awakened 
by her fears to that consideration of the future which 
hitherto she had forgotten, Irene for the first time 
seemed deaf to the charmer’s voice. 

“Alas!” said she, sadly, “even at the best, what 
can this love that we have so blindly encouraged, — 
what can it end in? Thou must not wed one like me; 
and I — how foolish I have been ! ” 


140 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ Recall thy senses then, Irene,” said Adrian, 
proudly, partly perhaps in anger, partly in his experi- 
ence of the sex. “ Love another, and more wisely, if 
thou wilt; cancel thy vows with me, and continue to 
think it a crime to love, and a folly to be true! ” 

“Cruel!” said Irene, falteringly, and in her turn 
alarmed. “ Dost thou speak in earnest ? ” 

“Tell me, ere I answer you, tell me this: come 
death, come anguish, come a whole life of sorrow, as 
the end of this love, wouldst thou yet repent that thou 
hast loved? If so, thou knowest not the love that I 
feel for thee. ” 

“Never, never can I repent!” said Irene, falling 
upon Adrian’s neck; “ forgive me ! ” 

“ But is there, in truth,” said Adrian, a little while 
after this loverlike quarrel and reconciliation, — “is 
there, in truth, so marked a difference between thy 
brother’s past and his present bearing? How knowest 
thou that the time for action is so near ? ” 

“ Because now he sits closeted whole nights with all 
ranks of men: he shuts up his books, he reads no more, 
— but, when alone, walks to and fro his chamber, 
muttering to himself. Sometimes he pauses before the 
calendar, which of late he has fixed with his own hand 
against the wall, and passes his finger over the letters, 
till he comes to some chosen date, and then he plays 
with his sword and smiles. But two nights since, arms, 
too, in great number, were brought to the house; and I 
heard the chief of the men who brought them, a grim 
giant, known well amongst the people, say, as he wiped 
his brow, ‘ These will see work soon ! ’ ” 

“ Arms ! Are you sure of that? ” said Adrian, anx- 
iously. “Nay, then, there is more in these schemes 
than I imagined ! But ” (observing Irene’s gaze bent 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 141 


fearfully on him as his voice changed, he added, more - 
gayly) — “ but come what may, believe me, my beauti- 
ful, my adored, that while I live, thy brother shall not 
suffer from the wrath he may provoke; nor I, though 
he forget our ancient friendship, cease to love thee 
less. ” 

“ Signor ! signor ! child ! it is time, — we must go ! ” 
said the shrill voice of Benedetta, now peering through 
the foliage. “ The workingmen pass home this way ; I 
see them approaching.” 

The lovers parted; for the first time the serpent had 
penetrated into their Eden: they had conversed, they 
had thought, of other things than love. 


/ 


142 .KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTER III. 


The Situation of a popular Patrician in times of Popular Dis- 
content. — Scene of the Lateran. 

The situation of a patrician who honestly loves the 
people is, in those evil times when power oppresses and 
freedom struggles, — when the two divisions of men are 
wrestling against each other, — the most irksome and 
perplexing that destiny can possibly contrive. Shall 
he take part with the nobles 1 — he betrays his con- 
science ! With the people? — he deserts his friends! 
But that consequence of the last alternative is not the 
sole, nor, perhaps, to a strong mind, the most severe. 
All men are swayed and chained by public opinion, — 
it is the public judge; but public opinion is not the 
same for all ranks. The public opinion that excites or 
deters the plebeian, is the opinion of the plebeians, — 
of those whom he sees and meets and knows; of those 
with whom he is brought in contact, those with whom 
he has mixed from childhood, those whose praises are 
daily heard, whose censure frowns upon him with 
every hour.^ So, also, the public opinion of the great 

1 It is the same in still smaller divisions. The public opinion 
for lawyers is that of lawyers ; of soldiers, that of the army ; of 
scholars, it is that of men of literature and science. And to the 
susceptible amongst the latter, the hostile criticism of learning has 
been more stinging than the severest moral censures of the vulgar. 
Many a man has done a great act, or composed a great work, 
solely to please the two or three persons constantly present to 
him. Their voice was his public opinion. The public opinion 


THE LAST OF THE TKIBUNES. 143 


is the opinion of their equals, — of those whom birth 
and accident cast forever in their way. This distinction 
is full of important practical deductions; it is one 
which, more than most maxims, should never be for- 
gotten by a politician who desires to he profound. It 
is, then, an ordeal terrible to pass, — which few ple- 
beians ever pass, which it is therefore unjust to expect 
patricians to cross unfalteringly, — the ordeal of oppos- 
ing the public opinion which exists for them. They 
cannot help doubting their own judgment, — they cannot 
help thinking the voice of wisdom or of virtue speaks 
in those sounds which have been deemed oracles from 
their cradle. In the tribunal of sectarian prejudice 
they imagine they recognize the court of the universal 
conscience. Another powerful antidote to the activity 
of a patrician so placed is in the certainty that to the 
last the motives of such activity will be alike miscon- 
strued by the aristocracy he deserts and the people he 
joins. It seems so unnatural in a man to fly in the 
face of his own order, that the world is willing to sup- 
pose any clue to the mystery save that of honest convic- 
tion or lofty patriotism. “ Ambition ! ” says one. 
“ Disappointment ! ” cries another. “ Some private 
grudge ! ” hints a third. “ Mob-courting vanity ! ” 
sneers a fourth. The people admire at first, but sus- 
pect afterwards. The moment he thwarts a popular 
wish, there is no redemption for him: he is accused of 
having acted the hypocrite, — of having worn the 
sheep’s fleece; and now, say they, “See! the wolf’s 

that operated on Bishop, the murderer, was the opinion of the 
burkers, his comrades. Did that condemn him ? No ! He knew 
no other public opinion till he came to he hanged, and caught the 
loathing eyes and heard the hissing execrations of the crowd 
below his gibbet. 


144 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


teeth peep out ! ” Is he familiar with the people 1 — it 
is cajolery ! Is he distant ? — it is pride ! What, then , 
sustains a man in such a situation, following his own 
conscience, with his eyes open to all the perils of the 
path? Away with the cant of public opinion, away 
with the poor delusion of posthumous justice; he will 
offend the first, he will never obtain the last. What 
sustains him ? His own soul ! A man thoroughly 
great has a certain contempt for his kind while he aids 
them: their weal or woe are all; their applause, their 
blame, are nothing to him. He walks forth from the 
circle of birth and habit; he is deaf to the little motives 
of little men. High, through the widest space his 
orbit may describe, he holds on his course to guide or 
to enlighten; but the noises below reach him not! 
Until the wheel is broken, until the dark void 
swallow up the star, it makes melody, night and day, 
to its own ear; thirsting for no sound from the earth it 
illumines, anxious for no companionship in the path 
through which it rolls, conscious of its own glory, and 
contented, therefore, to be alone / 

But minds of this order are rare. All ages cannot 
produce them. They are exceptions to the ordinary 
and human virtue, which is influenced and regulated by 
external circumstance. At a time when even to be 
merely susceptible to the voice of fame was a great 
pre-eminence in moral energies over the rest of man- 
kind, it would be impossible that any one should ever 
have formed the conception of that more refined and 
metaphysical sentiment, that purer excitement to high 
deeds, — that glory in one’s own heart, which is so im- 
measurably above the desire of a renown that lackeys 
the heels of others. In fact, before we can dispense 
with the world, we must, by a long and severe novitiate, 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 145 

by the probation of much thought and much sorrow, by 
deep and sad conviction of the vanity of all that the 
world can give us, have raised ourselves — not in the 
fervor of an hour, but habitually — above the world: 
an abstraction, an idealism, which in our wiser age 
how few, even of the wisest, can attain! Yet, till we 
are thus fortunate, we know not the true divinity of 
contemplation, nor the all-sufficing mightiness of con- 
science ; nor can we retreat with solemn footsteps into 
that Holy of Holies in our own souls, wherein we 
know and feel how much our nature is capable of the 
self-existence of a God ! 

But to return to the things and thoughts of earth. 
Those considerations, and those links of circumstance 
which in a similar situation have changed so many 
honest and courageous minds, changed also the mind of 
Adrian. He felt in a false position. His reason and 
conscience shared in the schemes of Kienzi, and his 
natural hardihood and love of enterprise would have led 
him actively to share the danger of their execution. 
But this, all his associations, his friendships, his 
private and household ties, loudly forbade. Against 
his order, against his house, against the companions of 
his youth, how could he plot secretly or act sternly ? 
By the goal to which he was impelled by patriotism, 
stood hypocrisy and ingratitude. Who would believe 
him the honest champion of his country who was a 
traitor to his friends 1 Thus, indeed, 

“ The native hue of resolution 
Was sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought; ” 

and he who should have been by nature a leader of the 
time became only its spectator. Yet Adrian endeavored 
to console himself for his present passiveness in a con- 

VOL. I. — 10 


146 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


viction of the policy of his conduct. He who takes no 
share in the commencement of civil revolutions can 
often become, with the most effect, a mediator between 
the passions and the parties subsequently formed. Per- 
haps, under Adrian’s circumstances, delay was really 
the part of a prudent statesman ; the very position which 
cripples at the first often gives authority before the end. 
Clear from the excesses, and saved from the jealousies, 
of rival factions, all men are willing to look with 
complaisance and respect to a new actor in a turbulent 
drama; his moderation may make him trusted by the 
people; his rank enable him to be a fitting mediator 
with the nobles ; and thus the qualities that would have 
rendered him a martyr at one period of the revolution 
raise him perhaps into a savior at another. 

Silent, therefore, and passive, Adrian waited the 
progress of events. If the projects of Eienzi failed, he 
might by that inactivity the better preserve the people 
from new chains, and their champion from death. If 
those projects succeeded, he might equally save his 
house from the popular wrath, and, advocating liberty, 
check disorder. Such, at least, were his hopes; and 
thus did the Italian sagacity and caution of his character 
control and pacify the enthusiasm of youth and courage. 

The sun shone, calm and cloudless, upon the vast con- 
course gathered before the broad space that surrounds 
the Church of St. John of Lateran. Partly by curi- 
osity, partly by the desire of the Bishop of Orvietto, 
partly because it was an occasion in which they could 
display the pomp of their retinues, many of the princi- 
pal barons of Borne had gathered to this spot. 

On one of the steps ascending to the church, with his 
mantle folded round him, stood Walter de Montreal, 
gazing on the various parties that, one after another. 


lUilNZI, THE LAST OE THE TRIBUNES. 147 


swept through the lane which the soldiers of the 
Church preserved unimpeded, in the middle of the 
crowd, for the access of the principal nobles. He 
watched with interest, though with his usual carelessness 
of air and roving glance, the different marks and looks 
of welcome given by the populace to the different per- 
sonages of note. Banners and pennons preceded each 
signor ; and as they waved aloft, the witticisms or nick- 
names — the brief words of praise or censure, that imply 
so much — which passed to and fro among that lively 
crowd were treasured carefully in his recollection. 

“ Make way there ! way for my Lord Martino Orsini, 
— Baron di Porto ! ” 

Peace, minion ! draw back ! way for the Signor 
Adrian Colonna, Baron di Gastello, and Knight of the 
Empire.” 

And at those two rival shouts you saw waving on 
high the golden bear of the Orsini, with the motto, 
“ Beware my embrace ! ” and the solitary column on an 
azure ground, of the Colonna, with Adrian’s especial 
device, “ Sad, but strong.” The train of Martino 
Orsini was much more numerous than that of Adrian, 
which last consisted but of ten servitors. But Adrian’s 
men attracted far greater admiration amongst the crowd, 
and pleased more the experienced eye of the warlike 
Knight of St. John. Their arms were polished like 
mirrors; their height was to an inch the same; their 
march was regular and sedate ; their mien erect ; they 
looked neither to the right nor left; they betrayed that 
ineffable discipline — that harmony of order — which 
Adrian had learned to impart to his men during his 
own apprenticeship of arms. But the disorderly train 
of the Lord of Porto was composed of men of all 
heights. Their arms were ill-polished and ill 


148 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


fashioned, and they pressed confusedly on each other; 
they laughed and spoke aloud; and in their mien and 
bearing expressed all the insolence of men who despised 
alike the master they served and the people they awed. 
The two bands coming unexpectedly on each other 
through this narrow defile, the jealousy of the two houses 
presently declared itself. Each pressed forward for the 
precedence; and as the quiet regularity of Adrian’s 
train and even its compact paucity of numbers enabled 
it to pass before the servitors of his rival, the populace 
set up a loud shout, “ A Colonna forever ! ” “ Let the 

Bear dance after the Column ! ” 

“ On, ye knaves ! ” said Orsini aloud to his men. 
“How have ye suffered this affront?” And, passing 
himself to the head of his men, he would have advanced 
through the midst of his rival’s train, had not a tall guard, 
in the pope’s livery, placed his baton in the way. 

“ Pardon, my lord ! we have the vicar’s express com- 
mands to suffer no struggling of the different trains one 
with another.” 

“ Knave ! dost thou bandy words with me ? ” said the 
fierce Orsini ; and with his sword he clove the baton in 
two. 

“ In the vicar’s name, I command you to fall back ! ” 
said the sturdy guard, now placing his huge bulk in the 
very front of the noble’s path. 

“ It is Cecco del Vecchio ! ” cried those of the populace 
who were near enough to perceive the interruption and 
its cause. 

“ Ay,” said one, “ the good vicar has put many of the 
stoutest fellows in the pope’s livery, in order the better 
to keep peace. He could have chosen none better than 
Cecco. ” 

“ But he must not fall ! ” cried another, as Orsini. 


RiENZr, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 149 

glaring on the smith, drew hack his sword as if to 
plunge it through his bosom. 

“ Shame, — shame ! shall the pope be thus insulted in 
his own city ? ’’ cried several voices. “ Down with the 
sacrilegious, — down ! ” And, as if by a preconcerted 
plan, a whole body of the mob broke at once through 
the lane, and swept like a torrent over Orsini and his 
jostled and ill-assorted train. Orsini himself was 
thrown on the ground with violence, and trampled upon 
by a hundred footsteps ; his men , huddled and struggling 
as much against themselves as against the mob, were 
scattered and overset; and when, by a great effort of the 
guards, headed by the smith himself, order was again 
restored, and the line re-formed, Orsini, wellnigh 
choked with his rage and humiliation, and greatly 
bruised by the rude assaults he had received, could 
scarcely stir from the ground. The officers of the pope 
raised him, and, when he was on his legs, he looked 
wildly around for his sword, which, falling from his 
hand, had been kicked among the crowd, and seeing it 
not, he said, between his ground teeth, to Cecco del 
Vecchio, — 

“ Fellow, thy neck shall answer this outrage, or may 
God desert me ! ” and passed along through the space, 
while a half-suppressed and exultant hoot from the 
bystanders followed his path. 

“ Way there,” cried the smith, “ for the Lord Mar- 
tino di Porto ! and may all the people know that he has 
threatened to take my life for the discharge of my duty 
in obedience to the pope’s vicar ! ” 

“He dare not, ” shouted out a thousand voices ; “ the 
people can protect their own ! ” 

This scene had not been lost on the Provencal, who 
well knew how to construe the wind by the direction of 


150 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


straws, and saw at once, by the boldness of the populace, 
that they themselves were conscious of a coming tempest. 
“ Par Dieu,^^ said he, as he saluted Adrian, who gravely, 
and without looking behind, had now won the steps of 
the church, “ yon tall fellow has a brave heart, and many 
friends too. What think you ? ” he added in a low 
whisper ; “ is not this scene a proof that the nobles are 
less safe than they wot of 1 ” 

“ The beast begins to kick against the spur, sir knight, ” 
answered Adrian ; “ a wise horseman should in such a 
case take care how he pull the rein too tight, lest the 
beast should rear, and he be overthrown, — yet that is 
the policy thou wouldst recommend.” 

“ You mistake,” returned Montreal; “ my wish was to 
give Kome one sovereign instead of many tyrants. But 
hark ! what means that bell ? ” 

“ The ceremony is about to begin, ” answered Adrian. 
“ Shall we enter the church together ? ” 

Seldom had a temple consecrated to God witnessed so 
singular a spectacle as that which now animated the sol- 
emn space of the Lateran. 

In the centre of the church seats were raised in an 
amphitheatre, at the far end of which was a scaffolding, 
a little higher than the rest; below this spot, but high 
enough to be in sight of all the concourse, was placed a 
vast table of iron, on which was graven an ancient in- 
scription, and bearing in its centre a clear and prominent 
device, presently to be explained. 

The seats were covered with cloth and rich tapestry. 
In the rear of the church was drawn a purple curtain. 
Around the amphitheatre were the officers of the church, 
in the party-colored liveries of the pope. To the right of 
the scaffold sat Raimond, Bishop of Orvietto, in his 
robes of state. On the benches round him you saw all 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 151 


the marked personages of Rome, — the judges, the men 
of letters, the nobles, from the lofty rank of the Savelli 
to the inferior grade of a Raselli. The space beyond the 
amphitheatre was filled with the people, who now poured 
fast in, stream after stream ; all the while rang, clear and 
loud, the great hell of the church. 

At length, as Adrian and Montreal seated themselves 
at a little distance from Raimond, the bell suddenly 
ceased, the murmurs of the people were stilled, the pur- 
ple curtain was withdrawn, and Rienzi came forth with 
slow and majestic steps. He came, — but not in his 
usual sombre and plain attire. Over his broad breast he 
wore a vest of dazzling whiteness, — a long robe , in the 
ample fashion of the toga, descended to his feet and swept 
the floor. On his head he wore a fold of white cloth, in 
the centre of which shone a golden crown. But the crown 
was divided, or cloven, as it were, by the mystic orna- 
ment of a silver sword, which, attracting the universal 
attention, testified at once that this strange garb was 
worn, not from the vanity of display, but for the sake of 
presenting to the concourse — in the person of the citizen 
— a type and emblem of that state of the city on which 
he was about to descant. 

“ Faith, ” whispered one of the old nobles to his neigh- 
bor, “ the plebeian assumes it bravely. ” 

“ It will be a rare sport,” said a second. “ I trust the 
good man will put some jests in his discourse.” 

“ What showman’s tricks are these ? ” said a third. 

“ He is certainly crazed ! ” said a fourth. 

“ How handsome he is ! ” said the women, mixed with 
the populace. 

“ This is a man who has learned the people by heart, ” 
observed Montreal to Adrian. “ He knows he must 
speak to the eye, in order to win the mind ; a knave, — a 
wise knave ! ” 


152 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


And now Rienzi had ascended the scaffold; and as he 
looked long and steadfastly around the meeting, the high 
and thoughtful repose of his majestic countenance, its 
deep and solemn gravity, hushed all the murmurs, and 
made its effect equally felt by the sneering nobles as the 
impatient populace. 

“ Signors of Rome,” said he, at length, “ and ye, friends 
and citizens, you have heard why we are met together 
this day ; and you, my Lord Bishop of Orvietto, and ye, 
fellow-laborers with me in the field of letters, — ye, too, 
are aware that it is upon some matter relative to that 
ancient Rome, the rise and the decline of whose past 
power and glories we have spent our youth in endeavoring 
to comprehend. But this, believe me, is no vain enigma 
of erudition, useful but to the studious, referring hut to 
the dead. Let the past perish ! — let darkness shroud 
it ! — let it sleep forever over the crumbling temples and 
desolate tombs of its forgotten sons, — if it cannot afford 
us, from its disburied secrets, a guide for the present and 
the future. What! my lords, ye have thought that it 
was for the sake of antiquity alone that we have wasted 
our nights and days in studying what antiquity can teach 
us! You are mistaken; it is nothing to know what we 
have been, unless it is with the desire of knowing that 
which we ought to be. Our ancestors are mere dust and 
ashes, save when they speak to our posterity ; and then 
their voices resound, not from the earth below, but the 
heaven above. There is an eloquence in memory, be- 
cause it is the nurse of hope. There is a sanctity in the 
past, hut only because of the chronicles it retains, — chron- 
icles of the progress of mankind, — stepping-stones in 
civilization, in liberty, and in knowledge. Our fathers 
forbid us to recede ; they teach us what is our rightful 
heritage, they bid us reclaim, they bid us augment, that 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 153 

heritage, — preserve their virtues, and avoid their errors. 
These are the true uses of the past. Like the sacred 
edifice in which we are, it is a tomb upon which to rear 
a temple. I see that you marvel at this long beginning ; 
ye look to each other, ye ask to what it tends. Be- 
hold this broad plate of iron; upon it is graven an 
inscription but lately disinterred from the heaps of stone 
and ruin which — oh, shame to Borne ! — were once the 
palaces of empire and the arches of triumphant power. 
The device in the centre of the table, which you behold, 
conveys the act of the Boman Senators, who are confer- 
ring upon Vespasian the imperial authority. It is this 
inscription which I have invited you to hear read! It 
specifies the very terms and limits of the authority thus 
conferred. To the emperor was confided the power of 
making laws and alliances with whatsoever nation, — of 
increasing or of diminishing the limits of towns and dis- 
tricts ; of — mark this, my lords ! — exalting men to the 
rank of dukes and kings, — ay, and of deposing and de- 
grading them; of making cities, and of unmaking; in 
short, of all the attributes of imperial power. Yes, to 
that emperor was confided this vast authority ; but by 
whom ? Heed, listen, I pray you, — let not a word be 
lost, — by whom, I say ? By the Boman Senate ! What 
was the Boman Senate ? The representative of the Boman 
people ! ” 

“ I knew he would come to that I ” said the smith, 
who stood at the door with his fellows, but to 
whose ear, clear and distinct, rolled the silver voice of 
Bienzi. 

“ Brave fellow I and this, too, in the hearing of the 
lords 1 ” 

“ Ay, you see what the people were I and we should 
never have known this but for him. ” 


154 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ Peace, fellows ! ” said the officer to those of the 
crowd from whom came these whispered sentences. 

Kienzi continued: “Yes, it is the people who im 
trusted this power, — to the people, therefore, it belongs ! 
Did the haughty emperor arrogate the crown? Could 
he assume the authority of himself ? Was it born with 
him ? Did he derive it, my lord barons, from the pos- 
session of towered castles, of lofty lineage ? No ! all- 
powerful as he was, he had no right to one atom of that 
power, save from the voice and trust of the Roman 
people. Such, O my countrymen ! such was, even at 
that day, when liberty was but the shadow of her former 
self, — such was the acknowledged prerogative of your 
fathers ! All power was the gift of the people. What 
have ye to give now ? Who, who, I say, — what single 
person, what petty chief, asks you for the authority he 
assumes ? His senate is his sword ; his chart of license 
is written, not with ink, but blood. The people ! — 
there is no people! Oh, would to God that we might 
disentomb the spirit of the past as easily as her records 1 ” 

“ If I were your kinsman, ” whispered Montreal to 
Adrian, “ I would give this man short breathing-time 
between his peroration and confession.” 

“ What is your emperor ? ” continued Kienzi, — “a 
stranger ! What the great head of your Church ? — an 
exile! Ye are without your lawful chiefs; and why? 
Because ye are not without your law-defying tyrants ! 
The license of your nobles, their discords, their dissen- 
sions, have driven our holy father from the heritage of 
St. Peter, — they have bathed your streets in your own 
blood; they have wasted the wealth of your labors on 
private quarrels and the maintenance of hireling ruffians! 
Your forces are exhausted against yourselves. You have 
made a mockery of your country, once the mistress of 


RIENZI, THE LAST OE THE TRIBUNES. 155 


the world. You have steeped her lips in gall, — ye have 
set a crown of thorns upon her head ! What, my lords ! ” 
cried he, turning sharply round towards the Savelli and 
Orsini, who, endeavoring to shake off the thrill which 
the fiery eloquence of Eienzi had stricken to their hearts, 
now, by contemptuous gestures and scornful smiles, testi- 
fied the displeasure they did not dare loudly to utter in 
the presence of the vicar and the people. “ What ! even 
while I speak, — ■ not the sanctity of this place restrains 
you! I am an humble man, — a citizen of E-ome, — hut 
I have this distinction: I have raised against myself 
many foes and scoffers for that which I have done for 
Kome. I am hated because I love my country; I am 
despised because I would exalt her. I retaliate, — I 
shall be avenged. Three traitors in your own palaces 
shall betray you; their names are — Luxury, Envy, and 
Dissension ! ” 

“ There he had them on the hip I ” 

“ Ha, ha ! by the Holy Cross, that was good ! ” 

“ I would go to the hangman for such another keen 
stroke as that ! ” 

“ It is a shame if we are cowards, when one man is 
thus brave, ” said the smith. 

“ This is the man we have always wanted ! ” 

“ Silence ! ” proclaimed the officer. 

“ 0 Komans I ” resumed Eienzi, passionately, — 
“ awake ! I conjure you. Let this memorial of your 
former power, your ancient liberties, sink deep into your 
souls. In a propitious hour if ye seize it, in an evil 
one if ye suffer the golden opportunity to escape, has this 
record of the past been unfolded to your eyes. Eecollect 
that the Jubilee approaches.” 

The Bishop of Orvietto smiled, and bowed approvingly ; 
the people, the citizens, the inferior nobles, noted well 


156 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

those signs of encouragement; and, to their minds, the 
pope himself, in the person of his vicar, looked benignly 
on the daring of Eienzi. 

“ The Jubilee approaches ; the eyes of all Christendom 
will be directed hither. Here, where from all quarters 
of the globe men come for peace, shall they find discord ? 
seeking absolution, shall they perceive but crime? In 
the centre of God’s dominion shall they weep at your 
weakness ? in the seat of the martyred saints shall they 
shudder at your vices ? — in the fountain and source of 
Christ’s law shall they find all law unknown? You 
were the glory of the world, — will you be its byword? 
You were its example, — will you be its warning? Rise, 
while it is yet time ! — clear your roads from the bandits 
that infest them, your walls from the hirelings that 
they harbor ! Banish these civil discords, or the men — 
how proud, how great soever — who maintain them ! 
Pluck the scales from the hand of Praud, the sword 
from the hand of Violence ! The balance and the sword 
are the ancient attributes of Justice; restore them to 
her again ! This be your high task, these be your 
great ends ! Deem any man who opposes them a traitor 
to his country. Gain a victory greater than those of the 
Caesars, — a victory over yourselves. Let the pilgrims of 
the world behold the resurrection of Rome ! Make one 
epoch of the Jubilee of Religion and the Restoration of 
Law! Lay the sacrifice of your vanquished passions — 
the first-fruits of your renovated liberties — upon the 
very altar that these walls contain ! and never, oh, never, 
since the world began, shall men have made a more 
grateful offering to their God ! ” 

So intense was the sensation these words created in 
the audience, so breathless and overpowered did they 
leave the souls which they took by storm, that Rienzi 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 157 


had descended the scaffold, and already disappeared 
behind the curtain from which he had emerged, ere the 
crowd were fully aware that he had ceased. 

The singularity of this sudden apparition — robed in 
mysterious splendor, and vanishing the moment its 
errand was fulfilled — gave additional effect to the words 
it had uttered. The whole character of that bold ad- 
dress became invested with a something preternatural 
and inspired : to the minds of the vulgar the mortal was 
converted into the oracle ; and, marvelling at the unhesi- 
tating courage with which their idol had rebuked and 
conjured the haughty barons, — each of whom they 
regarded in the light of sanctioned executioners, whose 
anger could be made manifest at once by the gibbet 
or the axe, — the people could not but superstitiously 
imagine that nothing less than authority from above 
could have gifted their leader with such hardihood, and 
preserved him from the danger it incurred. In fact, it 
was in this very courage of Eienzi that his safety consisted ; 
he was placed in those circumstances where audacity is 
prudence. Had he been less bold, the nobles would have 
been more severe; but so great a license of speech in an 
officer of the Holy See, they naturally imagined, was not 
unauthorized by the assent of the pope, as well as by the 
approbation of the people. Those who did not (like 
Stephen Colonna) despise words as wind, shrank back 
from the task of punishing one whose voice might be the 
mere echo of the wishes of the pontiff. The dissensions 
of the nobles among each other were no less favorable to 
Eienzi. He attacked a body the members of which had 
no union. 

“ It is not my duty to slay him ! ” said one. 

“ I am not the representative of the barons ! ” said 
another. 


158 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ If Stephen Colonna heeds him not, it would be 
absurd, as well as dangerous, in a meaner man to make 
himself the champion of the order! ” said a third. 

The Colonna smiled approval when E-ienzi denounced 
an Orsini, — an Orsini laughed aloud when the eloquence 
burst over a Colonna. The lesser nobles were well 
pleased to hear attacks upon both; while, on the other 
hand, the bishop, by the long impunity of Eienzi, had 
taken courage to sanction the conduct of his fellow- 
officer. He affected, indeed, at times to blame the ex- 
cess of his fervor, but it was always accompanied by the 
praises of his honesty; and the approbation of the pope^s 
vicar confirmed the impression of the nobles as to the 
approbation of the pope. Thus, from the very rashness 
of his enthusiasm had grown his security and success. 

Still, however, when the barons had a little recovered 
from the stupor into which Eienzi had cast them, they 
looked round to each other; and their looks confessed 
their sense of the insolence of the orator, and the affront 
offered to themselves. 

“ Per fede ! ” quoth Reginaldo di Orsini, “ this is past 
bearing, — the plebeian has gone too far ! ” 

“ Look at the populace below ! how they murmur and 
gape, and how their eyes sparkle, and what looks they 
bend at us ! ” said Luca di Savelli to his mortal enemy, 
Castruccio Malatesta. The sense of a common danger 
united in one moment, but only for a moment, the 
enmity of years. 

“Diavolo!” muttered Kaselli (Nina’s father) to a 
baron equally poor ; “ but the clerk has truth in his lips. 
’T is a pity he is not noble. ” 

“ What a clever brain marred ! said a Florentine 
merchant. “ That man might be something, if he were 
sufficiently rich.” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 159 


Adrian and Montreal were silent : the first seemed lost 
in thought; the last was watching the various effects 
produced upon the audience. 

“ Silence ! ” proclaimed the officers. “ Silence, for my 
lord vicar.” 

At this announcement every eye turned to Kaimond, 
who, rising with much clerical importance, thus addressed 
the assembly : — 

“ Although, barons and citizens of Rome, my well- 
beloved flock and children, I, no more than yourselves, 
anticipated the exact nature of the address ye have just 
heard, — and albeit I cannot feel unalloyed contentment 
at the manner, nor, I may say, at the whole matter of 
that fervent exhortation, — yet ” (laying great emphasis on 
the last word) “ I cannot suffer you to depart without 
adding to the prayers of our holy father’s servant those 
also of his holiness’s spiritual representative. It is true ! 
the Jubilee approaches. The Jubilee approaches; and 
yet our roads, even to the gates of Rome, are infested 
with murderous and godless ruffians ! What pilgrim can 
venture across the Apennines to worship at the altars of 
St. Peter ? The Jubilee approaches : what scandal shall it 
be to Rome if these shrines he without pilgrims, — if the 
timid recoil from, if the bold fall victims to, the dangers 
of the way! Wherefore, I pray you all, citizens and 
chiefs alike, — I pray you all to lay aside those unhappy 
dissensions which have so long consumed the strength of 
our sacred city ; and, uniting with each other in the ties 
of amity and brotherhood, to form a blessed league 
against the marauders of the road. I see amongst you, 
my lords, many of the boasts and pillars of the state; 
but, alas ! I think with grief and dismay on the cause- 
less and idle hatred that has grown up between you! 
— a scandal to our city, and reflecting, let me add, my 


160 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

lords, no honor on your faith as Christians, nor on your 
dignity as defenders of the Church.” 

Among the inferior nobles — along the seats of the 
judges and the men of letters, through the vast con- 
course of the people — ran a loud murmur of approba^ 
tion at these words. The greater barons looked proudly, 
but not contemptuously, at the countenance of the pre- 
late, and preserved a strict and unrevealing silence. 

“ In this holy spot,” continued the bishop, “ let me 
beseech you to bury those fruitless animosities which 
have already cost enough of blood and treasure ; and let 
us quit these walls with one common determination to 
evince our courage and display our chivalry only against 
our universal foes, — those ruffians who lay waste our 
fields and infest our public ways; the foes alike of the 
people we should protect, and the God whom we should 
serve ! ” 

The bishop resumed his seat; the nobles looked at 
each other without reply ; the people began to whisper 
loudly among themselves; when, after a short pause, 
Adrian di Castello rose. 

“ Pardon me, my lords, and you, reverend father, 
if I, inexperienced in years and of little mark and dig- 
nity amongst you, presume to be the first to embrace 
the proposal we have just heard. Willingly do I 
renounce all ancient cause of enmity with any of my 
compeers. Fortunately for me, my long absence from 
Home has swept from my remembrance the feuds and 
rivalries familiar to my early youth; and in this noble 
conclave I see but one man ” (glancing at Martino di 
Porto, who sat sullenly looking down) “ against whom I 
have at any time deemed it a duty to draw my sword ; 
the gage that I once cast to that noble is yet, I rejoice 
to think , unredeemed. I withdraw it. Henceforth my 
only foes shall be the foes of Pome ! ” 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 161 


** Nobly spoken ! ” said the bishop, aloud. 

“And,” continued Adrian, casting down his glove 
amongst the nobles, “ I throw, my lords, the gage, thus 
resumed, amongst you all, in challenge to a wider 
rivalry and a more noble field. I invite any man to 
vie with me in the zeal that he shall show to restore 
tranquillity to our roads and order to our state. It is a 
contest in which, if I be vanquished with reluctance, I 
will yield the prize without envy. Tn ten days from 
this time, reverend father, I will raise forty horsemen- 
at-arms, ready to obey whatever orders shall be agreed 
upon for the security of the E-oman state. And you, 
0 Komans, dismiss, I pray you, from your minds those 
eloquent invectives against your fellow-citizens which 
ye have lately heard. All of us, of what rank soever, 
may have shared in the excesses of these unhappy times; 
let us endeavor, not to avenge nor to imitate, but to 
reform and to unite. And may the people hereafter 
find that the true boast of a patrician is that his power 
the better enables him to serve his country ! ” 

“ Brave words ! ” quoth the smith, sneeringly. 

“ If they were all like him ! ” said the smith’s 
neighbor. 

“ He has helped the nobles out of a dilemma,” said 
Pandulfo. 

“ He has shown gray wit under young hairs,” said 
an aged Malatesta. 

“ You have turned the tide, but not stemmed it, noble 
Adrian,” whispered the ever-boding Montreal, as amidst 
the ijw.irmurs of the general approbation the young 
Colonna resumed his seat. 

“ How mean you? ” said Adrian. 

“ That your soft words, like all patrician concilia- 
tions, have come too late.” 

VOL. I. — 11 


162 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

Not another noble stirred, though they felt, perhaps, 
disposed to join in the general feeling of amnesty, and 
appeared by signs and whispers to applaud the speech 
of Adrian. They were too habituated to the ungrace- 
fulness of an unlettered pride, to how themselves to 
address conciliating language either to the people or 
their foes. And Eaimond, glancing round, and not 
willing that their unseemly silence should be long 
remarked, rose at once, to give it the best construction 
in his power. 

“ My son, thou hast spoken as a patriot and a Chris- 
tian ; by the approving silence of your peers we all feel 
that they share your sentiments. Break we up the 
meetipg, — its end is obtained. The manner of our 
proceeding against the leagued robbers of the road 
requires maturer consideration elsewhere. This day 
shall be an epoch in our history.” 

“ It shall,” quoth Cecco del Yecchio, gruffly, between 
his teeth. 

“ Children, my blessing upon you all,” concluded the 
vicar, spreading his arms. 

And in a few minutes more the crowd poured from 
the church. The different servitors and flag-hearers 
ranged themselves on the steps without, each train anx- 
ious for their master’s precedence; and the nobles, 
gravely collecting in small knots, in the which was no 
mixture of rival blood, followed the crowd down the 
aisles. Soon rose again the din and the noise and the 
wrangling and the oaths of the hostile hands, as with 
pain and labor the vicar’s officers marshalled them in 
“ order most disorderly.” 

But so true were Montreal’s words to Adrian that 
the populace already half forgot the young noble’s gen- 
erous appeal, and were only bitterly commenting on the 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 163 


ungracious silence of his brother lords. What, too, to 
them was this crusade against the robbers of the road '? 
They blamed the good bishop for not saying boldly to 
the nobles, “ Ye are the first robbers we must march 
against ! ” 

The popular discontents had gone far beyond pallia- 
tives; they had arrived at that point when the people 
longed less for reform than change. There are times 
when a revolution cannot be warded off; it must come, 
— come alike by resistance or by concession. Woe to 
that race in which a revolution produces no fruits ! — in 
which the thunderbolt smites the high place, but does 
not purify the air ! To suffer in vain is often the lot of 
the noblest individuals; but when a people suffer in 
vain, let them curse themselves ! 


164 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TEIBUNES. 


CHAPTER IV. 

The Ambitious Citizen, and the Ambitious Soldier. 

The Bishop of Orvietto lingered last, to confer with 
Rienzi, who awaited him in the recesses of the Lateran. 
Raimond had the penetration not to he seduced into 
believing that the late scene could effect any reformation 
amongst the nobles, heal their divisions, or lead them 
actively against the infesters of the Campagna. But 
as he detailed to Rienzi all that had occurred subsequent 
to the departure of that hero of the scene, he concluded 
with saying, — 

“ You will perceive from this, one good result will he 
produced : the first armed dissension — the first fray 
among the nobles — will seem like a breach of promise : 
and, to the people and to the pope, a reasonable excuse 
for despairing of all amendment amongst the barons, — 
an excuse which will sanction the efforts of the first, 
and the approval of the last. ” 

“For such a fray we shall not long wait,” answered 
Rienzi. 

“ I believe the prophecy,” answered Raimond, smil- 
ing ; “ at present all runs well. Go you with us 
homeward ? ” 

“ Nay, I think it better to tarry here till the crowd is 
entirely dispersed; for if they were to see me in their 
present excitement, they might insist on some rash and 
hasty enterprise. Besides, my lord,” added Rienzi, 
“ with an ignorant people, however honest and enthusi- 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 165 


astic, the rule must be rigidly observed, — stale not your 
presence by custom. Never may men like me, who 
have no external rank, appear amongst the crowd, save 
on those occasions when the mind is itself a rank.” 

“ That is true, as you have no train,” answered Eai- 
mond, thinking of his own well-liveried menials. 
“ Adieu , then ; we shall meet soon. ” 

“ Ay, at Philippi, my lord. Reverend father, your 
blessing ! ” 

It was some time subsequent to this conference that 
Rienzi quitted the sacred edifice. As he stood on the 
steps of the church, — now silent and deserted, — the hour 
that precedes the brief twilight of the South lent its 
magic to the view. There he beheld the sweeping arches 
of the mighty Aqueduct extending far along the scene, 
and backed by the distant and purpled hills. Before — 
to the right — rose the gate which took its Roman 
name from the Coelian Mount, at whose declivity it yet 
stands. Beyond — from the height of the steps — he 
saw the villages scattered through the gray Campagna, 
whitening in the sloped sun; and in the farthest dis- 
tance the mountain shadows began to darken over the 
roofs of the ancient Tusculum, and the second Alban ^ 
city, which yet rises, in desolate neglect, above the 
vanished palaces of Pompey and Domitian. 

The Roman stood absorbed and motionless for some 
moments, gazing on the scene, and inhaling the sweet 
balm of the mellow air. It was the soft spring-time, 
— the season of flowers and green leaves and whispering 
winds, the pastoral May of Italia’s poets; but hushed 

1 The first Alba — the Alba Longa — whose origin fable ascribes 
to Ascanius, was destroyed by Tullus Hostilius. The second Alba, 
or modern Albano, was erected on the plain below the ancient 
town, a little before the time of Nero. 


166 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TEIBUNES. 


was the voice of song on the hanks of the Tiber, — the 
reeds gave music no more. From the sacred Mount in 
which Saturn held his home, the Dryad and the Nymph 
and Italy’s native Sylvan were gone forever. Rienzi’s 
original nature, — its enthusiasm; its veneration for the 
past; its love of the beautiful and the great; that very 
attachment to the graces and pomp which give so florid 
a character to the harsh realities of life, and which 
power afterwards too luxuriantly developed; the exu- 
berance of thoughts and fancies, which poured itself 
from his lips in so brilliant and inexhaustible a flood, 
— all bespoke those intellectual and imaginative biases 
which in calmer times might have raised him in 
literature to a more indisputable eminence than that to 
which action can ever lead; and something of such con- 
sciousness crossed his spirit at that moment. 

“Happier had it been for me,” thought he, “had I 
never looked out from my own heart upon the world. 
I had all within me that makes contentment of the 
present, because I had that which can make me forget 
the present. I had the power to repeople, to create: 
the legends and dreams of old, the divine faculty of 
verse, in which the beautiful superfluities of the heart 
can pour themselves, — these were mine! Petrarch 
chose wisely for himself! To address the world, but 
from without the world; to persuade, to excite, to com- 
mand, — for these are the aim and glory of ambition, — 
but to shun its tumult and its toil ! His the quiet cell 
which he fills with the shapes of beauty, — the solitude, 
from which he can banish the evil times whereon we are 
fallen, but in which he can dream back the great hearts 
and the glorious epochs of the past. For me, — to what 
cares I am wedded, to what labors I am bound; what 
instruments I must use, what disguises I must assume; 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES 167 

to tricks and artifice I must bow my pride ! Base are 
my enemies, uncertain my friends; and verily, in this 
struggle with blinded and mean men, the soul itself 
becomes warped and dwarfish. Patient and darkling,"^ 
the Means creep through caves and the soiling mire, to 
gain at last the light which is the End.” 

In these reflections there was a truth the whole gloom 
and sadness of which the Eoman had not yet experi- 
enced. However august be the object we propose to 
ourselves, every less worthy path we take to insure it 
distorts the mental sight of our ambition; and the 
means, by degrees, abase the end to their own standard. 
This is the true misfortune of a man nobler than his 
age, — that the instruments he must use soil himself: 
half he reforms his times; but half, too, the times will 
corrupt the reformer. His own craft undermines his 
safety, — the people, whom he himself accustoms to a 
false excitement, perpetually crave it; and when their 
ruler ceases to seduce their fancy, he falls their victim. 
The reform he makes by these means is hollow and 
momentary, — it is swept away with himself: it was 
but the trick, — the show, the wasted genius of a con- 
jurer; the curtain falls, — the magic is over, the cup 
and balls are kicked aside. Better one slow step in 
enlightenment, — which, being made by the reason of a 
whole people, cannot recede, — than these sudden flashes 
in the depth of the general night, which the darkness, 
by contrast doubly dark, swallows up everlastingly 
again ! 

As, slowly and musingly, Bienzi turned to quit the 
church, he felt a light touch upon his shoulder. 

“ Fair evening to you, sir scholar,” said a frank 
voice. 

“To you I return the courtesy,” answered Kienzi, 


168 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


gazing upon the person who thus suddenly accosted 
him, and in whose white cross and martial bearing the 
reader recognizes the Knight of St. John. 

“You know me not, I think? ” said Montreal; “hut 
that matters little, we may easily commence our 
acquaintance, — for me, indeed, I am fortunate enough 
to have made myself already acquainted with you.’’ 

“ Possibly we have met elsewhere , at the house of 
one of those nobles to whose rank you seem to belong ? ” 

“Belong! no, not exactly!” returned Montreal, 
proudly. “ High-born and great as your magnates 
deem themselves, I would not, while the mountains can 
yield one free spot for my footstep, change my place in 
the world’s many grades for theirs. To the brave there 
is but one sort of plebeian, and that is the coward. But 
you, sage Bienzi,” continued the knight, in a gayer 
tone, “ I have seen in more stirring scenes than the 
hall of a Eoman baron. ” 

Bienzi glanced keenly at Montreal, who met his eye 
with an open brow. 

“ Yes ! ” resumed the knight, — “ but let us walk on ; 
suffer me for a few moments to be your companion. 
Yes! I have listened to you, — the other eve, when 
you addressed the populace, and to-day, when you re- 
buked the nobles; and at midnight, too, not long since, 
when (your ear, fair sir! — lower, it is a secret), at 
midnight, too, when you administered the oath of 
brotherhood to the bold conspirators on the ruined 
Aventine ! ” 

As he concluded, the knight drew himself aside to 
watch, upon Bienzi ’s countenance, the effect which 
his words might produce. 

A slight tremor passed over the frame of the con- 
spirator, — for so, unless the conspiracy succeed, would 


RIENZI, THE LAST OE THE TRIBUNES. 169 

Rienzi be termed by others than Montreal : he turned 
abruptly round to confront the knight, and placed his 
hand involuntarily on his sword, but presently relin- 
quished the grasp. 

“Ha! ” said the Roman, slowly, “ if this be true, fall 
Rome I There is treason even among the free ! ” 

“No treason, brave sir!” answered Montreal; “I 
possess thy secret, — but none have betrayed it to 
me.” 

“ And is it as friend or foe that thou hast learned 
it?” 

“That as it may be,” returned Montreal, carelessly. 
“ Enough, at present, that I could send thee to gibbet, 
if I said but the word, to show my power to be thy 
foe ; enough that I have not done it, to prove my dis- 
position to be thy friend.” 

“Thou mistakest, stranger! that man does not live 
who could shed my blood in the streets of Rome ! The 
gibbet ! Little dost thou know of the power which 
surrounds Rienzi.” 

These words were said with some scorn and bitter- 
ness; but after a moment’s pause Rienzi resumed 
more calmly , — 

“ By the cross on thy mantle , thou belongest to one of 
the proudest orders of knighthood : thou art a foreigner 
and a cavalier. What generous sympathies can convert 
thee into a friend of the Roman people ? ” 

“Cola di Rienzi,” returned Montreal, “the sympa- 
thies that unite us are those which unite all men who 
by their own efforts rise above the herd. True, I 
was born noble, but powerless and poor; at my beck 
now move, from city to city, the armed instruments of 
authority; my breath is the law of thousands. This 
empire I have not inherited; I won it by a cool brain 


170 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

and a fearless arm. Know me for Walter de Montreal ; 
is it not a name that speaks a spirit kindred to thine 
own? Is not ambition a common sentiment between 
us? I do not marshal soldiers for gain only, though 
men have termed me avaricious, — nor butcher peasants 
for the love of blood, though men have called me cruel. 
Arms and wealth are the sinews of power; it is power 
that I desire, — thou, bold Kienzi, strugglest thou not 
for the same ? Is it the rank breath of the garlic-chew- 
ing mob, is it the whispered envy of schoolmen, is it 
the hollow mouthing of hoys who call thee patriot and 
freeman, — words to trick the ear, — that will content 
thee ? These are hut thy instruments to power. Have 
I spoken truly ? ” 

Whatever distaste Kienzi might conceive at this 
speech, he masked effectually. “ Certes,’’ said he, “ it 
would be in vain, renowned captain, to deny that I seek 
but that power of which thou speakest. But what union 
can there be between the ambition of a Boman citizen 
and the leader of paid armies that take their cause only 
according to their hire: to-day, fight for liberty in 
Florence, — to-morrow, for tyranny in Bologna ? Pardon 
my frankness ; for in this age that is deemed no disgrace 
which I impute to thy armies. Valor and generalship 
are held to consecrate any cause they distinguish; and 
he who is the master of princes, may be well honored 
by them as their equal. ” 

“We are entering into a less deserted quarter of 
the town,” said the knight; “ is there no secret place 
— -no Aventine — in this direction, where we can 
confer ? ” 

“Hush!” replied Rienzi, cautiously looking round. 
“I thank thee, noble Montreal, for the hint; nor may 
it be well for us to be seen together. Wilt thou deign 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 171 


to follow me to my home by the Palatine Bridge?' 
There we can converse undisturbed and secure. ” 

“ Be it so,” said Montreal, falling back. 

With a quick and hurried step Bienzi passed through 
the town, in which, wherever he was discovered, the 
scattered citizens saluted him with marked respect; and 
turning through a labyrinth of dark alleys, as if to shun 
the more public thoroughfares, arrived at length at a 
broad space near the river. The first stars of night 
shone down on the ancient Temple of Fortuna Virilis, 
which the chances of Time had already converted into 
the Church of St. Mary of Egypt; and facing the twice- 
hallowed edifice stood the house of Kienzi. 

“ It is a fair omen to have my mansion facing the 
ancient Temple of Fortune,” said Eienzi, smiling, as 
Montreal followed the Boman into the chamber I have 
already described. 

“Yet Valor need never pray to Fortune,” said the 
knight ; “ the first commands the last. ” 

Long was the conference between these two men, the 
most enterprising of their age. Meanwhile let me make 
the reader somewhat better acquainted with the character 
and designs of Montreal, than the hurry of events has 
yet permitted him to become. 

Walter de Montreal, generally known in the chroni- 
cles of Italy by the designation of Fra Mo reale, had 
passed into Italy, — a bold adventurer, worthy to become 

1 The picturesque ruins shown at this day as having once been 
the habitation of the celebrated Cola di Rienzi were long asserted 
by the antiquarians to have belonged to another Cola or Nicola. I 
believe, however, that the dispute has been lately decided ; and, 
indeed, no one but an antiquary, and that a Roman one, could sup- 
pose that there were two Colas to Avhom the inscription on the house 
would apply. 


172 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


a successor of those roving Normans (from one of the 
most eminent of whom, by the mother’s side, he claimed 
descent) who had formerly played so strange a part in 
the chivalric errantry of Europe, realizing the fable of 
Amadis and Palmerin — (each knight in himself a host) , 
winning territories and oversetting thrones; acknowl- 
edging no laws save those of knighthood; never con- 
founding themselves with the tribe amongst which they 
settled; incapable of becoming citizens, and scarcely 
contented with aspiring to be kings. At that time 
Italy was the India of all those well-born and penniless 
adventurers who, like Montreal, had inflamed their 
imagination by the ballads and legends of the Roberts 
and the Godfreys of old ; who had trained themselves 
from youth to manage the barb, and bear, through the 
heats of summer, the weight of arms; and who, passing 
into an effeminate and distracted land, had only to 
exhibit bravery in order to command wealth. It was 
considered no disgrace for some powerful chieftain to 
collect together a band of these hardy aliens; to subsist 
amidst the mountains on booty and pillage; to make 
war upon tyrant or republic, as interest suggested, and 
to sell, at enormous stipends, the immunities of peace. 
Sometimes they hired themselves to one state to protect 
it against the other ; and the next year beheld them in 
the field against their former employers. These bands 
of northern stipendiaries assumed, therefore, a civil as 
well as a military importance : they were as indispen- 
sable to the safety of one state as they were destructive 
to the security of all. But five years before the present 
date, the Florentine Republic had hired the services of 
a celebrated leader of these foreign soldiers, — Gualtier, 
Duke of Athens. By acclamation, the people them- 
selves had elected that warrior to the state of prince, 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 173 


or tyrant, of their state; before the year was completed, 
they revolted against his cruelties, or rather against his 
exactions,^ — for, despite all the boasts of their histo- 
rians, they felt an attack on their purses more deeply 
than an assault on their liberties, — they had chased 
him from their city, and once more proclaimed them- 
selves a Eepuhlic. The bravest and most favored of 
the soldiers of the Duke of Athens had been Walter de 
Montreal; he had shared the rise and the downfall of 
his chief. Amongst popular commotions, the acute and 
observant mind of the Knight of St. John had learned 
no mean civil experience: he had learned to sound a 
people , — to know how far they would endure ; to con- 
strue the signs of revolution; to be a reader of the 
times. After the downfall of the Duke of Athens, as 
a Dree Companion, in other words a Freebooter, Mon- 
treal had augmented under the fierce Werner his riches 
and his renown. At present without employment 
worthy his spirit of enterprise and intrigue, the dis- 
ordered and chiefless state of Dome had attracted him 
thither. In the league he had proposed to Colonna, 
in the suggestions he had made to the vanity of that 
signor, his own object was to render his services 
indispensable; to constitute himself the head of the 
soldiery whom his proposed designs would render neces- 
sary to the ambition of the Colonna, could it be excited; 
and, in the vastness of his hardy genius for enterprise, 
he probably foresaw that the command of such a force 
would be , in reality, the command of Eome, — a counter- 
revolution might easily unseat the Colonna and elect 
himself to the principality. It had sometimes been the 
custom of Eoman as of other Italian states, to prefer 
for a chief magistrate, under the title of Fodesta, a 
foreigner to a native. And Montreal hoped that he 


174 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


might possibly become to Rome wbat the Duke ot 
Athens bad been to Florence, — an ambition he knew 
well enough to be above the gentleman of Provence, 
bub not above the leader of an army. But, as we have 
already seen , his sagacity perceived at once that he could 
not move the aged head of the patricians to those hardy 
and perilous measures which were necessary to the attain- 
ment of supreme power. Contented with his present 
station, and taught moderation by his age and his past 
reverses, Stephen Colonna was not the man to risk a 
scaffold from the hope to gain a throne. The contempt 
which the old patrician professed for the people and 
their idol, also taught the deep-thinking Montreal that 
if the Colonna possessed not the ambition, neither did 
he possess the policy requisite for empire. The knight 
found his caution against Rienzi in vain, and he turned 
to Rienzi himself. Little cared the Knight of St. John 
which party were uppermost — prince or people — so 
that his own objects were attained; in fact, he had 
studied the humors of a people, not in order to serve, 
hut to rule them; and, believing all men actuated by a 
similar ambition, he imagined that, whether a dema- 
gogue or a patrician reigned, the people were equally 
to be victims, and that the cry of “ Order ” on the one 
hand , or of “ Liberty ” on the other , was but the mere 
pretext by which the energy of one man sought to justify 
his ambition over the herd. Deeming himself one of 
the most honorable spirits of his age, he believed in no 
honor which he was unable to feel; and, sceptic in 
virtue, was therefore credulous of vice. 

But the boldness of his own nature inclined him, 
perhaps, rather to the adventurous Rienzi than to the 
self-complacent Colonna ; and he considered that to the 
safety of the first he and his armed minions might be 


EIENZI, THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. 175 


even more necessary than to that of the last. At present 
his main object was to learn from Rienzi the exact 
strength which he possessed, and how far he was pre- 
pared for any actual revolt. 

The acute Roman took care, on the one hand, how he 
betrayed to the knight more than he yet knew, or he 
disgusted him by apparent reserve on the other. Crafty 
as Montreal was, he possessed not that wonderful art of 
mastering others which was so pre-eminently the gift 
of the eloquent and profound Rienzi, and the difference 
between the grades of their intellect was visible in their 
present conference. 

“I see,” said Rienzi, “that amidst all the events 
which have lately smiled upon my ambition, none is so 
favorable as that which assures me of your countenance 
and friendship. In truth, I require some armed alli- 
ance. Would you believe it, our friends, so bold in 
private meetings, yet shrink from a public explosion. 
They fear not the patricians, but the soldiery of the 
patricians; for it is the remarkable feature of the Italian 
courage, that they have no terror for each other, but the 
casque and sword of a foreign hireling make them quail 
like deer.” 

“ They will welcome gladly, then, the assurance that 
such hirelings shall be in their service, not against 
them; and as many as you desire for the revolution, so 
many shall you receive. ” 

“But the pay and the conditions,” said Rienzi, with 
his dry sarcastic smile. “ How shall we arrange the 
first, and what shall we hold to be the second ? ” 

“ That is an affair easily concluded,” replied Montreal. 
“ For me, to tell you frankly, the glory and excitement 
of so great a revulsion would alone suffice. I like to 
feel myself necessary to the completion of high events. 


176 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


For my men it is otherwise. Your first act will be to 
seize the revenues of the state. Well, whatever they 
amount to, the product of the first year, great or small, 
shall be divided amongst us. You the one half, I and 
my men the other half.” 

“ It is much,” said Eienzi, gravely, and as if in 
calculation, — “but Rome cannot purchase her liberties 
too dearly. So be it then decided. ” 

“Amen! — and now, then, what is your force? for 
these eighty or a hundred signors of the Aventine — 
worthy men, doubtless — scarce suffice for a revolt! ” 

Gazing cautiously round the room, the Roman placed 
his hand on Montreal’s arm, — 

“ Between you and me , it requires time to cement it. 
We shall be unable to stir these five weeks. I have too 
rashly anticipated the period. The corn is indeed cut, 
but I must now, by private adjuration and address, bind 
up the scattered sheaves.” 

“ Five weeks,” repeated Montreal; “ that is far longer 
than I anticipated.” 

“ What I desire,” continued Rienzi, fixing his search- 
ing eyes upon Montreal , “ is that in the mean while we 
should preserve a profound calm, — we should remove 
every suspicion. I shall bury myself in my studies, 
and convoke no more meetings.” 

“ Well — ” 

“ And for yourself, noble knight, might I venture to 
dictate, I would pray you to mix with the nobles, to 
profess for me and for the people the profoundest con- 
tempt, and to contribute to rock them yet more in the 
cradle of their false security. Meanwhile you could 
quietly withdraw as many of the armed mercenaries as 
you influence from Rome, and leave the nobles without 
their only defenders. Collecting these hardy warriors 


EIENZI. THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 177 

in the recesses of the mountains, a day^s march from 
hence, we may he able to summon them at need, and 
they shall appear at our gates and in the midst of our 
tising, — hailed as deliverers by the nobles, but in 
reality allies with the people. In the confusion and 
despair of our enemies at discovering their mistake, they 
will fly from the city.” 

“ And its revenues and its empire will become the 
appanage of the hardy soldier and the intriguing dema- 
gogue! ” cried Montreal, with a laugh. 

" Sir knight, the division shall be equal.” 

“ Agreed ! ” 

“ And now, noble Montreal, a flask of our best vin- 
tage ! ” said Rienzi , changing his tone. 

“You know the Provencals,” answered Montreal, 

gayly- 

The wine was brought, the conversation became free 
and familiar, and Montreal, whose craft was acquired 
and whose frankness was natural, unwittingly committed 
his secret projects and ambition more nakedly to Rienzi 
than he had designed to do. They parted apparently 
the best of friends. 

“ By the way,” said Rienzi, as they drained the last 
goblet, “ Stephen Colonna betakes him to Corneto, with 
a convoy of corn, on the 19th. Will it not be as well if 
you join him 1 You can take that opportunity to whis- 
per discontent to the mercenaries that accompany him on 
his mission, and induce them to our plan.” 

“ I thought of that before ,” returned Montreal ; “ it 
shall be done. For the present, farewell ! 

‘ His barb, and his sword. 

And his lady the peerless, 

Are all that are prized 
By Orlando the fearless. 


VOL I. — 12 


178 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUTES. 

Success to the Norman, 

The darling of story ; 

His glory is pleasure, — 

His pleasure is glory.’ ” 

Chanting this rude ditty as he resumed his mantle, 
the knight waved his hand to Hienzi , and departed. 

Rienzi watched the receding form of his guest with 
an expression of hate and fear upon his countenance. 
“ Give that man the power,” he muttered, “ and he may 
he a second Totila.^ Methinks I see, in his griping 
and ferocious nature, — through all the gloss of its gayety 
and knightly grace, — the very personification of our old 
Gothic foes. I trust I have lulled him! Verily, two 
suns could no more blaze in one atmosphere, than Walter 
de Montreal and Cola di Rienzi live in the same city. 
The star-seers tell us that we feel a secret and uncon- 
trollable antipathy to those whose astral influences 
destine them to work us evil ; such antipathy do I feel 
for yon fair-faced homicide. Cross not my path, Mon- 
treal ! — cross not my path ! ” 

With this soliloquy Rienzi turned within, and retir- 
ing to his apartment, was seen no more that night. 

1 Innocent VI., some years afterwards, proclaimed Montreal to 
be worse than Totila. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 179 


CHAPTER V. 

The Procession of the Barons. — The Beginning of the End. 

It was the morning of the 19th of May , the air was brisk 
and clear, and the sun, which had just risen, shone 
cheerily upon the glittering casques and spears of a 
gallant procession of armed horsemen, sweeping through 
the long and principal street of Rome. The neighing 
of the horses, the ringing of the hoofs, the dazzle of the 
armor, and the tossing to and fro of the standards, 
adorned with the proud insignia of the Colonna, pre- 
sented one of the gay and brilliant spectacles peculiar 
to the Middle Ages. 

At the head of the troop, on a stout palfrey, rode 
Stephen Colonna. At his right was the Knight of 
Provence, curbing with an easy hand a slight but fiery 
steed of the Arab race ; behind him followed two squires, 
the one leading his war-horse, the other bearing his 
lance and helmet. At the left of Stephen Colonna rode 
Adrian, grave and silent, and replying only by mono- 
syllables to the gay badinage of the Knight of Provence. 
A considerable number of the flower of the Roman nobles 
followed the old baron ; and the train was closed by a 
serried troop of foreign horsemen, completely armed. 

There was no crowd in the street, — the citizens 
looked with seeming apathy at the procession from 
their half-closed shops. 

“ Have these Romans no passion for shows ? ” asked 
Montreal ; “ if they could be more easily amused, they 
would be more easily governed.” 


180 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“Oh, Eienzi, and such buffoons, amuse them. We 
do better, we terrify! ” replied Stephen. 

“ What sings the troubadour, Lord Adrian ? ” said 
Montreal. 

“ ‘ Smiles, false smiles, should form the school 
For those who rise, and those who rule : 

The bravq they trick, the fair subdue, 

Kings deceive, and states undo. 

Smiles, false smiles ! 

‘ Frowns, true frowns, ourselves betray. 

The brave arouse, the fair dismay. 

Sting the pride, which blood must heal. 

Mix the bowl, and point the steel. 

Frowns, true frowns ! " 

The lay is of France, signor; yet methinks it brings 
its wisdom from Italy; for the serpent smile is your 
countrymen’s proper distinction, and the frown ill 
becomes them.” 

“ Sir knight,” replied Adrian, sharply, and incensed 
at the taunt ; “ you foreigners have taught us how to 
frown, — 'a virtue sometimes.” 

“ But not wisdom, unless the hand could maintain 
what the brow menaced,” returned Montreal, with 
haughtiness; for he had much of the Franc vivacity, 
which often overcame his prudence; and he had con- 
ceived a secret pique against Adrian since their interview 
at Stephen’s palace. 

“ Sir knight,” answered Adrian, coloring; “ our con- 
versation may lead to warmer words than I would desire 
to have with one who has rendered me so gallant a 
service. " 

“Nay, then, let us go back to the troubadours,” said 
Montreal, indifferently. “ Forgive me if I do not think 


HIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 181 


highly, in general, of Italian honor or Italian valor; 
your valor I acknowledge, for I have witnessed it, and 
valor and honor go together, — let that suffice! ” 

As Adrian was about to answer, his eye fell suddenly 
on the burly form of Cecco del Vecchio, who was lean- 
ing his bare and brawny arms over his anvil, and gazing 
with a smile upon the group. There was something in 
that smile which turned the current of Adrian’s thoughts, 
and which he could not contemplate without an unac- 
countable misgiving. 

“ A strong villain, that, ” said Montreal, also eying 
the smith. “I should like to enlist him. Fellow!” 
cried he, aloud ; “ you have an arm that were as fit to 
wield the sword as to fashion it. Desert your anvil, 
and follow the fortunes of Fra Moreale ! ” 

The smith nodded his head. “ Signor cavalier,” said 
he, gravely, " we poor men have no passion for war; we 
want not to kill others: we desire only ourselves to live, 
— if you will let us ! ” 

“ By the Holy Mother, a slavish answer ! But you 
Komans — ” 

“ Are slaves ! ” interrupted the smith , turning away 
to the interior of his forge. 

“The dog is mutinous,” said the old Colonna. And 
as the band swept on, the rude foreigners, encouraged 
by their leaders, had each some taunt or jest, uttered in 
a barbarous attempt at the southern for the lazy 

giant, as he again appeared in front of his forge, leaning 
on his anvil as before, and betraying no sign of atten- 
tion to his insulters, save by a heightened glow of his 
swarthy visage; and so the gallant procession passed 
through the streets, and quitted the Eternal City. 

There was a long interval of deep silence, of general 
calm, throughout the whole of Rome: the shops were 


182 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


still but half opened; no man betook himself to his 
business; it was like the commencement of some holi- 
day, when indolence precedes enjoyment. 

About noon a few small knots of men might be seen 
scattered about the streets, whispering to each other, 
but soon dispersing; and every now and then a single 
passenger, generally habited in the long robes used by 
the men of letters or in the more sombre garb of monks, 
passed hurriedly up the street towards the Church of 
St. Mary of Egypt, once the Temple of Fortune. Then, 
again, all was solitary and deserted. Suddenly there 
was heard the sound of a single trumpet! It swelled. 
— it gathered on the ear. Cecco del Vecchio looked up 
from his anvil ! A solitary horseman paced slowly by 
the forge, and wound a long, loud blast of the trumpet 
suspended round his neck, as he passed through the 
middle of the street. Then might you see a crowd, 
suddenly and as by magic, appear emerging from every 
corner: the street became thronged with multitudes; 
but it was only by the tramp of their feet, and an indis- 
tinct and low murmur, that they broke the silence. 
Again the horseman wound his trump, and when the 
note ceased, he cried aloud, “Friends and Romans! 
to-morrow, at dawn of day let each man find himself 
unarmed before the Church of St. Angelo. Cola di 
Rienzi convenes the Romans to provide for the good 
state of Rome.” A shout, that seemed to shake the 
bases of the seven hills, broke forth at the end of this 
brief exhortation; the horseman rode slowly on, and 
the crowd followed. This was the commencement of 
the Revolution! 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 183 


CHAPTER VI. 


The Conspirator becomes the Magistrate. 

At midnight, when the rest of the city seemed hushed 
in rest, lights were streaming from the windows of the 
Church of St. Angelo. Breaking from its echoing 
aisles, the long and solemn notes of sacred music stole 
at frequent intervals upon the air. Rienzi was praying 
within the church; thirty Masses consumed the hours 
from night till morn, and all the sanction of religion 
was invoked to consecrate the enterprise of liberty.^ 
The sun had long risen, and the crowd had long been 
assembled before the church door, and in vast streams 
along every street that led to it, — when the bell of the 
church tolled out long and merrily; and as it ceased, 
the voices of the choristers within chanted the following 
hymn, in which were somewhat strikingly though bar- 
barously blended the spirit of the classic patriotism 
with the fervor of religious zeal: — 

1 In fact, I apprehend that if ever the life of Cola di Rienzi shall 
be written by a hand worthy of the task, it will be shown that a 
strong religious feeling was blended with the political enthusiasm of 
the people, — the religious feeling of a premature and crude reformat 
tion, the legacy of Arnold of Brescia. It was not, however, one 
excited against the priests, but favored by them. The principal 
conventual orders declared for the revolution. 


( 


184 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

THE ROMAN HYMN OF LIBERTY. 

Let the mountains exult around I ^ 

. On her seven-hill’d throne renown’d, 

Once more old Rome is crown’d ! 

Jubilate! 

Sing out, 0 Vale and Wave I 
Look up from each laurell’d grave, 

Bright dust of the deathless brave ! 

Jubilate ! 

Pale Vision, what art thou ? Lo, 

From Time’s dark deeps. 

Like a Wind, It sweeps. 

Like a Wind, when the tempests blow : 

A shadowy form, as a giant ghost. 

It stands in the midst of the armed host ! 

The dead man’s shroud on Its awful limbs : 

And the gloom of Its presence the daylight dims : 

And the trembling world looks on aghast — 

All hail to the Soul op the mighty Past ! 

Hail! all hail! 

As we speak, as we hallow. It moves, It breathes ; 

From its clouded crest bud the laurel wreaths, — 

As a Sun that leaps up from the arms of Night, 

The shadow takes shape, and the gloom takes light. 

Hail! all hail! 

\ The Soul of the Past, again, 

To its ancient home, 

In the hearts of Rome, 

Hath come to resume its reign! 

1 "Exultent in circuito Vestro Montes,” etc. — Let the moun- 
tains exult around ! So begins Rienzi’s letter to the Senate and 
Roman people, preserved by Hocsemius. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 185 


0 Fame, with a prophet’s voice, 

Bid the ends of the earth rejoice ! 

Wherever the Proud are Strong, 

And Right is oppress’d by Wrong ; 

Wherever the day dim shines 

Through the cell where the captive pines, — 

Go forth, with a trumpet’s sound ! 

And tell to the Nations round, 

On the Hills which the Heroes trod, 

In the shrines of the Saints of God, 

In the Csesars’ hall, and the Martyrs’ prison. 

That the slumber is broke, and the Sleeper arisen ! 
That the reign of the Goth and the Vandal is o’er ; 
And Earth feels the tread of The Roman once more ! 


As the hymn ended, the gate of the church opened; 
the crowd gave way on either side, and, preceded by 
three of the young nobles of the inferior order, bearing 
standards of allegorical design, depicting the triumph 
of liberty, justice, and concord, forth issued Rienzi, 
clad in complete armor, the helmet alone excepted. 
His face was pale with watching and intense excite- 
ment, but stern, grave, and solemnly composed; and 
its expression so repelled any vociferous and vulgar 
burst of feeling that those who beheld it hushed the 
shout on their lips, and stilled by a simultaneous cry 
of reproof the gratulations of the crowd behind. Side 
by side with Rienzi moved Raimond, Bishop of Orvietto : 
and behind, marching two by two, followed a hundred 
men-at-arms. In complete silence the procession began 
its way, until, as it approached the Capitol, the awe 
of the crowd gradually vanished, and thousands upon 
thousands of voices rent the air with shouts of exulta- 
tion and joy. 

Arrived at the foot of the great staircase, which then 


186 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


made the principal ascent to the square of the Capitol, 
the procession halted; and as the crowd filled up that 
vast space in front, — adorned and hallowed by many 
of the most majestic columns of the temples of old, — 
Rienzi addressed the populace, whom he had suddenly 
elevated into a people. 

He depicted forcibly the servitude and misery of the 
citizens, the utter absence of all law, the want even of 
common security to life and property. He declared that, 
undaunted by the peril he incurred, he devoted his life 
to the regeneration of their common country; and he 
solemnly appealed to the people to assist the enterprise, 
and at once to sanction and consolidate the revolution 
by an established code of law and a constitutional 
assembly. He then ordered the chart and outline of 
the constitution he proposed, to be read by the herald 
to the multitude. 

It created — or rather revived, with new privileges 
and powers — a representative assembly of councillors. 
It proclaimed, as its first law, one that seems simple 
enough to our happier times, hut never hitherto executed 
at Rome : every wilful homicide, of whatever rank, was 
to be punished by death. It enacted that no private 
noble or citizen should he suffered to maintain fortifica- 
tions and garrisons in the city or the country; that the 
gates and bridges of the state should he under the con- 
trol of whomsoever should be elected chief magistrate. 
It forbade all harbor of brigands, mercenaries, and 
robbers, on payment of a thousand marks of silver; and 
it made the barons who possessed the neighboring terri- 
tories responsible for the safety of the roads and the 
transport of merchandise. It took under the protection 
of the state the widow and the orphan. It appointed, 
in each of the quarters of the city, an armed militia, 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 187 


whom the tolling of the hell of the Capitol, at any hour, 
was to assemble to the protection of the state. It 
ordained that in each harbor of the coast a vessel 
should be stationed for the safeguard of commerce. 
It decreed the sum of one hundred florins to the heirs 
of every man who died in the defence of Rome ; and it 
devoted the public revenues to the service and protection 
of the state. 

Such, moderate at once and effectual, was the outline 
of the new constitution; and it may amuse the reader 
to consider how great must have been the previous dis- 
orders of the city, when the common and elementary 
provisions of civilization and security made the char- 
acter of the code proposed, and the limit of a popular 
revolution. 

The most rapturous shouts followed the sketch of the 
new constitution; and amidst the clamor up rose the 
huge form of Cecco del Vecchio. Despite his condition, 
he was a man of great importance at the present crisis : 
his zeal and his courage, and perhaps still more his 
brute passion and stubborn prejudice, had made him 
popular. The lower order of mechanics looked to him 
as their head and representative; out, then, he spake 
loud and fearlessly, — speaking well, because his mind 
was full of what he had to say. 

“ Countrymen and Citizens! This new constitution 
meets with your approbation; so it ought. But what 
are good laws, if we do not have good men to execute 
them 1 Who can execute a law so well as the man who 
designs it ? If you ask me to give you a notion how to 
make a good shield, and my notion pleases you, would 
you ask me, or another smith, to make it for you? If 
you ask another, he may make a good shield, but it 
would not be the same as that which I should have 


188 KIEN^I, THE LAST OE THE TRIBUNES. 

made, and the description of which contented you. 
Cola di Rienzi has proposed a code of law that shall he 
our shield. Who should see that the shield become 
what he proposes, but Cola di Rienzi ? Romans! I 
suggest that Cola di Rienzi be intrusted by the people 
with the authority, by whatsoever name he pleases, of 
carrying the new constitution into effect; and what- 
ever be the means, we, the people, will bear him 
harmless. ” 

“Long life to Rienzi! long live Cecco del Vecchio! 
He hath spoken well! — none but the law-maker shall 
be the governor! ” 

Such were the acclamations which greeted the ambi- 
tious heart of the scholar. The voice of the people 
invested him with the supreme power. He had created 
a commonwealth, — to become, if he desired it, a despot! 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 189 


CHAPTEK VII. 

Looking after the Halter when the Mare is Stolen. 

While such were the events at E-ome, a servitor of 
Stephen Colonna was already on his way to Corneto. 
The astonishment with which the old baron received 
the intelligence may he easily imagined. He lost not 
a moment in convening his troop; and while in all the 
bustle of departure, the Knight of St. John abruptly 
entered his presence. His mien had lost its usual frank 
composure. 

“ How is this 1 ” said he, hastily ; “ a revolt ? — Eienzi 
sovereign of Home ? — can the news be believed ? ” 

“ It is too true ! ” said Colonna, with a bitter smile. 
“ Where shall we hang him on our return ? ” 

“ Talk not so wildly, sir baron, ” replied Montreal, 
discourteously ; “ Kienzi is stronger than you think for. 
I know what men are, and you only know what noblemen 
are ! Where is your kinsman Adrian ? ” 

“ He is here, noble Montreal, ” said Stephen, shrug- 
ging his shoulders, with a half-disdainful smile at the 
rebuke, which he thought it more prudent not to resent; 
“ he is here ! — see him enter ! ” 

“ You have heard the news ? ” exclaimed Montreal. 

“ I have.” 

“ And despise the revolution ? ” 

I fear it ! ” 

“ Then you have some sense in you. But this is 
none of my affair; I will not interrupt your consulta- 
tions. Adieu for the present ! ” and ere Stephen could 
prevent him, the knight had quitted the chamber. 


190 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

“ What means this demagogue 1 ” Montreal muttered 
to himself. “ Would he trick me ? — has he got rid of 
my presence in order to monopolize all the profit of the 
enterprise? I fear me so ! — the cunning Koman! We 
northern warriors could never compete with the intel- 
lect of these Italians, hut for their cowardice. But 
what shall he done ? I have already hid Kodolph com- 
municate with the brigands, and they are on the eve 
of departure from their present lord. Well, let it he 
so! Better that I should first break the power of the 
barons, and then make my own terms, sword in hand, 
with the phebeian. And if I fail in this, sweet Ade- 
line ! I shall see thee again 1 that is some comfort ! 
and Louis of Hungary will hid high for the arm and 
brain of Walter de Montreal. What, ho! Kodolph! ” he 
exclaimed aloud, as the sturdy form of the trooper, half 
armed and half intoxicated, reeled along the courtyard. 
“ Knave ! art thou drunk at this hour ? ” 

“ Drunk or sober, ” answered Bodolph, bending low, “ I 
am at thy bidding.” 

“ Well said! Are thy friends ripe for the saddle? ” 

“ Eighty of them, already tired of idleness and the 
dull air of Eome, will fly wherever Sir Walter de Mon- 
treal wishes.” 

“ Hasten, then, — bid them mount ; we go not hence 
with the Colonna ; we leave while they are yet talking ! 
Bid my squires attend me ! ” 

And when Stephen Colonna was settling himself on 
his palfrey, he heard for the first time that the Knight 
of Provence, Bodolph the trooper, and eighty of the 
stipendiaries had already departed, — whither, none 
knew. 

“ To precede us to Borne ! Gallant barbarian ! ” said 
Colonna. “ Sirs, on ! ” 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 191 


CHAPTER VIII. 

The Attack — the Retreat — the Election — and the Adhesion. 

Arriving at Rome, the company of the Colonna found 
the gates barred and the walls manned. Stephen bade 
advance his trumpeters, with one of his captains, imperi- 
ously to demand admittance. 

“We have orders, ” replied the chief of the town-guard, 
“ to admit none who bear arms, flags, or trumpets. 
Let the Lords Colonna dismiss their train, and they are 
welcome. ” 

“ Whose are these insolent mandates ? ” asked the 
captain. 

“ Those of the Lord Bishop of Orvietto and Cola di 
Rienzi, joint protectors of the Buono Stato.” ^ 

The captain of the Colonna returned to his chief 
with these tidings. The rage of Stephen was inde- 
scribable. “ Go back, ” he cried, as soon as he could 
summon voice, “ and say that if the gates are not 
forthwith opened to me and mine, the blood of the 
plebeians be on their own head. As for Raimond, 
vicars of the pope have high spiritual authority, none 
temporal. Let him prescribe a fast, and he shall be 
obeyed. But for the rash Rienzi, say that Stephen 
Colonna will seek him in the Capitol to-morrow, for the 
purpose of throwing him out of the highest window. ” 

These messages the envoy failed not to deliver. 

The captain of the Romans was equally stern in his 
reply. 


1 Good Estate. 


192 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ Declare to your lord, ” said he, “ that Kome holds him 
and his as rebels and traitors ; and that the moment you 
regain your troop, our archers receive our command to 
draw their bows, — in the name of the pope, the city, 
and the liberator.” 

This threat was executed to the letter ; and ere the old 
baron had time to draw up his men in the best array, 
the gates were thrown open, and a well-armed if un- 
disciplined multitude poured forth, with fierce shouts, 
clashing their arms, and advancing the azure banners' of 
the Roman state. So desperate their charge, and so 
great their numbers, that the barons, after a short and 
tumultuous conflict, were driven back, and chased by 
their pursuers for more than a mile from the walls of 
the city. 

As soon as the barons recovered their disorder and dis- 
may, a hasty council was held, at which various and 
contradictory opinions were loudly urged. Some were 
for departing on the instant to Palestrina, which belonged 
to the Colonna, and possessed an almost inaccessible for- 
tress. Others were for dispersing, and entering peaceably 
and in detached parties through the other gates. Stephen 
Colonna — himself incensed and disturbed from his usual 
self-command — was unable to preserve his authority ; 
Luca di Savelli,^ a timid though treacherous and subtle 
man, already turned his horse’s head, and summoned his 
men to follow him to his castle in Romagna, when the 
old Colonna bethought himself of a method by which to 
keep his band from a disunion that he had the sense to 
perceive would prove fatal to the common cause. He 
proposed that they should at once repair to Palestrina, 
and there fortify themselves, while one of the chiefs 

1 The more correct orthography were Luca di Savello ; but the 
one in the text is preserved as more familiar to the_English reader. 


V 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 193 

should be selected to enter Rome alone, and apparently 
submissive, to examine the strength of Rienzi; and with 
the discretionary power to resist if possible, or to make 
the best terms he could for the admission of the rest. 

“ And who, ” asked Savelli, sneeringly, “ will undertake 
this dangerous mission ? Who, unarmed and alone, will 
expose himself to the ^ rage of the fiercest populace of 
Italy, and the caprice of a demagogue in the first flush 
of his power ? ” 

The barons and the captains looked at each other in 
silence. Savelli laughed. 

Hitherto Adrian had taken no part in the conference, 
and but little in the previous contest. He now came to 
the support of his kinsman. 

“ Signors ! ” said he, “ I will undertake this mission, — 
but on mine own account, independently of yours; free 
to act as I may think best, for the dignity of a Roman 
noble and the interests of a Roman citizen; free to raise 
my standard on mine own tower or to yield fealty to the 
new estate. ” 

“ Well said! ” cried the old Colonna, hastily. “ Heaven 
forbid we should enter Rome as foes, if to enter it as 
friends be yet allowed us ! What say ye, gentles ? ” 

A more worthy choice could not be selected, ” said 
Savelli ; “ but I should scarce deem it possible that a 
Colonna could think there was an option between resist- 
ance and fealty to this upstart revolution. ” 

“ Of that, signor, I will judge for myself ; if you de- 
mand an agent for yourselves, choose another. I announce 
to ye frankly, that I have seen enough of other states to 
think the recent condition of Rome demanded some 
redress. Whether Rienzi and Raimond be worthy of the 
task they have assumed, I know not. ” 

Savelli was silent. The old Colonna seized the word. 

VOL. I. — 13 


194 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

“ To Palestrina, then ! — are ye all agreed on this ? 
At the worst or at the best, we should not he divided ! On 
this condition alone I hazard the safety of my kinsman ! " 

The barons murmured a little among themselves *, 
the expediency of Stephen’s proposition was evident, 
and they at length assented to it. 

Adrian saw them depart, and then, attended only by 
his squire, slowly rode towards a more distant entrance 
into the city. On arriving at the gates, his name was 
demanded, he gave it freely. 

“ Enter, my lord, ” said the warder ; “ our orders were 
to admit all that came unarmed and unattended. But to 
the Lord Adrian di Gastello, alone, we had a special 
injunction to give the honors due to a citizen and a friend. ” 

Adrian, a little touched by this implied recollection of 
friendship, now rode through a long line of armed citizens, 
who saluted him respectfully as he passed; and as he 
returned the salutation with courtesy, a loud and approv- 
ing shout followed his horse’s steps. 

So, save by one attendant, alone, and in peace, the 
young patrician proceeded leisurely through the long 
streets, empty and deserted, — for nearly one half of the 
inhabitants were assembled at the walls, and nearly the 
other half were engaged in a more peaceful duty, — until, 
penetrating the interior, the wide and elevated space of 
the Capitol broke upon his sight. The sun was slowly 
setting over an immense multitude that overspread the 
spot ; and high above a scaffold raised in the centre, shone 
to the western ray the great Gonfalon of Kome studded 
with silver stars. 

Adrian reined in his steed. “ This, ” thought he, " is 
scarcely the hour thus publicly to confer with Eienzi ; 
yet fain would I, mingled with the crowd, judge how far 
his power is supported, and in what manner it is borne. ” 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 195 


Mousing a little, he withdrew into one of the obscurer 
streets, then wholly deserted, surrendered his horse to 
his squire, and, borrowing of the latter his morion and 
long mantle, passed to one of the more private entrances 
of the Capitol, and, enveloped in his cloak, stood — one 
of the crowd — intent upon all that followed. 

“And what,” he asked of a plainly dressed citizen, 
“ is the cause of this assembly ? ” 

, “ Heard you not the proclamation ? ” returned the 
other, in some surprise. “ Do you not know that the 
council of the city and the guilds of the artisans have 
passed a vote to proffer to Rienzi the title of King of 
Rome ? ” 

The Knight of the Emperor, to whom belonged that 
august dignity, drew back in dismay. 

“And,” resumed the citizen, “this assembly of all 
the lesser barons, councillors, and artificers is convened 
to hear the answer. ” 

“ Of course it will be assent? ” 

“I know not, — there are strange rumors; hitherto 
the liberator has concealed his sentiments.” 

At that instant a loud flourish of martial music 
announced the approach of Rienzi. The crowd tumult- 
uously divided; and presently, from the palace of the 
Capitol to the scaffold, passed Rienzi, still in complete 
armor, save the helmet; and with him, in all the pomp 
of his episcopal robes, Raimond of Orvietto. 

As soon as Rienzi had ascended the platform, and 
was thus made visible to the whole concourse, no words 
can suffice to paint the enthusiasm of the scene , — the 
shouts, the gestures, the tears, the sobs, the wild 
laughter, in which the sympathy of those lively and 
susceptible children of the South broke forth. The 
windows and balconies of the palace were thronged 


196 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


with the wives and daughters of the lesser barons and 
more opulent citizens; and Adrian, with a slight start, 
beheld amongst them — pale, agitated, tearful — the 
lovely face of his Irene; a face that even thus would 
have outshone all present, but for one by her side, 
whose beauty the emotion of the hour only served to 
embellish. The dark, large, and flashing eyes of Nina 
di Raselli, just bedewed, were fixed proudly on the hero 
of her choice; and pride, even more than joy, gave a 
richer carnation to her cheek, and the presence of a 
queen to her noble and rounded form. The setting 
sun poured its full glory over the spot ; the bared heads, 
the animated faces of the crowd, the gray and vast mass 
of the Capitol ; and not far from the side of E-ienzi it 
brought into a strange and startling light the sculptured 
form of a colossal Lion of Basalt,^ which gave its name 
to a staircase leading to the Capitol. It was an old 
Egyptian relic, — vast, worn, and grim; some symbol 
of a vanished creed, to whose face the sculptor had 
imparted something of the aspect of the human counte- 
nance. And this producing the eftect probably sought, 
gave at all times a mystic, preternatural, and fearful 
expression to the stern features, and to that solemn 
and hushed repose which is so peculiarly the secret of 
Egyptian sculpture. The awe which this colossal and 
frowning image was calculated to convey was felt yet 
more deeply by the vulgar, because “ The Staircase of 

1 The existent Capitol is very different from the building at the 
time of Rienzi j and the reader must not suppose that the present 
staircase, designed by Michael Angelo, at the base of which are 
two marble lions, removed by Pius IV. from the Church of St. 
Stephen del Cacco, was the staircase of the Lion of Basalt, which 
bears so stern a connection with the history of Rienzi. That mute 
witness of dark deeds is no more. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 197 


the Lion ” was the wonted place of the state executions 
as of the state ceremonies. And seldom did the stoutest 
citizen forget to cross himself, or feel unchilled with a 
certain terror, whenever, passing by the place, he caught, 
suddenly fixed upon him, the stony gaze and ominous 
grin of that old monster from the cities of the Nile. 

It was some minutes before the feelings of the 
assembly allowed Rienzi to be heard. But when at 
length the last shout closed with a simultaneous cry 
of “ Long live Rienzi ! Deliverer and King of Rome ! ” 
he raised his hand impatiently, and the curiosity of the 
crowd procured a sudden silence. 

“Deliverer of Rome, my countrymen!” said he. 
“ Yes! change not that title, — I am too ambitious to 
he a king ! Preserve your obedience to your pontiff, 
your allegiance to your emperor, but he faithful to 
your own liberties. Ye have a right to your ancient 
constitution; but that constitution needed not a king. 
Emulous of the name of Brutus, I am above the titles 
of a Tarquin! Romans, awake! awake! he inspired 
with a nobler love of liberty than that which, if it 
dethrones the tyrant of to-day, would madly risk the 
danger of tyranny for to-morrow! Rome wants still a 
liberator, never a usurper! Take away yon bauble!” 

There was a pause : the crowd were deeply affected , 
but they uttered no shouts; they looked anxiously for a 
reply from their councillors or popular leaders. 

“ Signor,” said Pandulfo di Guido, who was one of 
the Caporioni , “ your answer is worthy of your fame. 
But, in order to enforce the law, Rome must endow 
you with a legal title, — if not that of king, deign to 
accept that of dictator or of consul.” 

“ Long live the Consul Rienzi ! ” cried several voices. 

Rienzi waved his hand for silence. 


198 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES, 

" Pandulfo di Guido! and you, honored councillors 
of Konie, such title is at once too august for my merits 
and too inapplicable to my functions. 1 am one of the 
people, — the people are my charge ; the nobles can 
protect themselves. Dictator and consul are the appel- 
lations of patricians. No,” he continued, after a short 
pause, “ if ye deem it necessary, for the preservation of 
order, that your fellow -citizen should be intrusted with 
a formal title and a recognized power, be it so; but let 
it be such as may attest the nature of our new institu- 
tions, the wisdom of the people, and the moderation 
of their leaders. Once, my countrymen, the people 
elected, for the protectors of their rights and the guar- 
dians of their freedom, certain officers responsible to 
the people, chosen from the people, provident for the 
people. Their power was great, but it was delegated; 
a dignity, but a trust. The name of these officers was 
that of Tribune. Such is the title that, conceded, not 
by clamor alone, but in the full Parliament of the 
people, and accompanied hj such Parliament ruling 
with such Parliament, — such is the title I will grate- 
fully accept. ” ^ 

The speech, the sentiments of Pienzi were rendered 
far more impressive by a manner of earnest and deep 
sincerity; and some of the Eomans, despite their cor- 
ruption, felt a momentary exultation in the forbearance 
of their chief. ** Long live the Tribune of Pome ! ” 
was shouted, but less loud than the cry of “ Live the 

1 Gibbon and Sismoudi alike (neither of whom appears to have 
consulted with much attention the original documents preserved 
by Hocsemius) say nothing of the Representative Parliament, 
which it was almost Rienzi’s first public act to institute or model. 
Six days from the memorable 1 9th of May, he addressed the people 
of Viterbo in a letter yet extant. He summons them to elect and 
send two syndics, or ambassadors, to the General Parliament. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 199 


King! ” And the vulgar almost thought the revolution 
was incomplete, because the loftier title was not assumed. 
To a degenerate and emhruted people, liberty seems too 
plain a thing, if unadorned by the pomp of the very 
despotism they would dethrone. Eevenge is their 
desire, rather than release; and the greater the new 
power they create, the greater seems their revenge 
against the old. Still all that was most respected, 
intelligent, and powerful amongst the assembly were 
delighted at a temperance which they foresaw would 
free Eome from a thousand dangers, whether from the 
emperor or the pontiff. And their delight was yet 
increased when Eienzi added, so soon as returning 
silence permitted : “ And since we have been equal 
laborers in the same cause, whatever honors he awarded 
to me should be extended also to the vicar of the pope, 
Raimond, Lord Bishop of Orvietto. Remember that 
both Church and State are properly the rulers of the 
people only because their benefactors. Long live the 
first vicar of a pope that was ever also the liberator of 
a state ! ” 

Whether or not Rienzi was only actuated by patriot- 
ism in his moderation, certain it is that his sagacity 
was at least equal to his virtue, and perhaps nothing 
could have cemented the revolution more strongly than 
thus obtaining for a colleague the vicar and representa- 
tive of the pontifical power; it borrowed, for the time, 
the sanction of the pope himself, — thus made to share 
the responsibility of the revolution, without monopoliz- 
ing the power of the state. While the crowd hailed 
the proposition of Rienzi ; while their shouts yet filled 
the air; while Raimond, somewhat taken by surprise, 
sought by signs and gestures to convey at once his 
gratitude and his humility, — the Tribune-elect, casting 


200 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


his eyes around, perceived many hitherto attracted by 
curiosity, and whom, from their rank and weight, it 
was desirable to secure in the first heat of the public 
enthusiasm. Accordingly, as soon as Raimond had 
uttered a short and pompous harangue, — in which his 
eager acceptance of the honor proposed him was ludi- 
crously contrasted by his embarrassed desire not to 
involve himself or the pope in any untoward conse- 
quences that might ensue, — ^‘Kienzi motioned to two 
heralds that stood behind upon the platform; and one 
of these advancing, proclaimed — “ That as it was 
desirable that all hitherto neuter should now profess 
themselves friends or foes, so they were invited to take 
at once the oath of obedience to the laws, and subscrip- 
tion to the Buono Stato. ” 

So great was the popular fervor, and so much had it 
been refined and deepened in its tone by the addresses 
of Bienzi, that even the most indifferent had caught the 
contagion ; and no man liked to be seen shrinking from 
the rest: so that the most neutral, knowing themselves 
the most marked, were the most entrapped into alle- 
giance to the Buono Stato. The first who advanced to 
the platform and took the oath was the Signor di Baselli , 
the father of Nina. Others of the lesser nobility fol- 
lowed his example. 

The presence of the pope’s vicar induced the aris- 
tocratic; the fear of the people urged the selfish; the 
encouragement of shouts and gratulations excited the 
vain. The space between Adrian and Bienzi was made 
clear. The young noble suddenly felt the eyes of the 
Tribune were upon him ; he felt that those eyes recog- 
nized and called upon him, — he colored, he breathed 
short. The noble forbearance of Bienzi had touched 
him to the heart: the applause, the pageant, the enthu- 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 201 


siasm of the scene, intoxicated, confused him. He 
lifted his eyes and saw before him the sister of the 
Tribune, — the lady of his love! His indecision, his 
pause, continued; when Raimond, observing him, and 
obedient to a whisper from Rienzi, artfully cried aloud, 
" Room for the Lord Adrian di Gastello ! a Colonna ! a 
Colonna! ” Retreat was cut off. Mechanically and 
as if in a dream Adrian ascended to the platform ; and , 
to complete the triumph of the Tribune, the sun’s last 
ray beheld the flower of the Colonna — the best and 
bravest of the Barons of Rome — confessing his authority 
and subscribing to his laws! 




BOOK III. 


THE FREEDOM WITHOUT LAW. 

Ben furo avventurosi i cavalieri, 

Ch’ erano a quella eta, che nei valloni, 

Nelle scure spelonche e boschi fieri, 

Tane di serpi, d’ orsi e di leoni, 

Trovavan quel che nei palazzi altieri 
Appena or trovar pon giudici buoni ; 

Donne che nella lor pin fresca etade 
Sien degne di aver titol di beltade. 

Ariosto, Orl Fur. can. xi. L 





BOOK III. 


CHAPTER I. 

The Return of Walter de Montreal to his Fortress. 

When Walter de Montreal and his mercenaries quitted 
Corneto, they made the best of their way to Rome; 
arriving there long before the barons, they met with 
a similar reception at the gates, but Montreal prudently 
forbore all attack and menace, and contented himself 
with sending his trusty Rodolph into the city to seek 
Rienzi and to crave permission to enter with his troop. 
Rodolph returned in a shorter time than was antici- 
pated. “Well,” said Montreal, impatiently, “you have 
the order, I suppose. Shall we bid them open the 
gates ? ” 

“ Bid them open our graves,” replied the Saxon, 
bluntly. “ I trust my next heraldry will be to a more 
friendly court.” 

“ How ! what mean you ? ” 

“ Briefly this : I found the new governor, or whatever 
his title, in the palace of the Capitol, surrounded by 
guards and councillors, and in a suit of the finest armor 
I ever saw out of Milan. ” 

“ Pest on his armor! give us his answer.” 

“‘Tell Walter de Montreal,^ said he, then, if you 
will have it, ‘that Rome is no longer a den of thieves; 
tell him that if he enters he must abide a trial — ^ ” 


206 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

“ A trial ! ” cried Montreal , grinding his teeth. 

" ‘ For participation in the evil doings of Werner and 
his freebooters.’ ” 

"Ha!” 

“ ‘ Tell him, moreover, that Eome declares war against 
all robbers, whether in tent or tower, and that we order 
him in forty-eight hours to quit the territories of the 
Church.’ ” 

" He thinks, then, not only to deceive, but to menace 
me? Well, proceed.” 

“ That was all his reply to you; to me, however, he 
vouchsafed a caution still more obliging. ‘ Hark ye, 
friend,’ said he; ‘for every German bandit found in 
Eome after to-morrow, our welcome will be cord and 
gibbet ! Begone ! ’ ” 

“Enough! enough!” cried Montreal, coloring with 
rage and shame. “ Eodolph, you have a skilful eye in 
these matters; how many Northmen would it take to 
give that same gibbet to the upstart 1 ” 

Eodolph scratched his huge head, and seemed awhile 
lost in calculation. At length he said, “You, captain, 
must he the best judge, when I tell you that twenty 
thousand Eomans are the least of his force ; so I heard 
by the way; and this evening he is to accept the crown, 
and depose the emperor. ” 

“Ha, ha! ” laughed Montreal, “ is he so mad? then 
he will want not our aid to hang himself. My friends, 
let us wait the result. At present, neither barons nor 
people seem likely to fill our coffers. Let us across the 
country to Terracina. Thank the saints,” and Montreal 
(who was not without a strange kind of devotion — 
indeed he deemed that virtue essential to chivalry) 
crossed himself piously, “ the free companions are never 
long without quarters! ” 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 207 


“Hurrah for the Knight of St. John!” cried the 
mercenaries. “And hurrah for fair Provence and bold 
Germany ! ” added the knight, as he waved his hand on 
high, struck spurs into his already wearied horse; and 
breaking out into his favorite song, — 

“ His steed and his sword, 

And his lady the peerless,” etc., 

Montreal, with his troop, struck gallantly across the 
Campagna. 

The Knight of St. John soon, however, fell into an 
absorbed and moody reverie j and his followers imitating 
the silence of their chief, in a few minutes the clatter 
of their arms and the jingle of their spurs alone dis- 
turbed the stillness of the wide and gloomy plains across 
which they made towards Terracina. Montreal was 
recalling with bitter resentment his conference with 
Kienzi; and, proud of his own sagacity and talent for 
scheming, he was humbled and vexed at the discovery 
that he had been duped by a wilier intriguer. His am- 
bitious designs on Rome, too, were crossed, and even 
crushed for the moment, by the very means to which 
he had looked for their execution. He had seen enough 
of the barons to feel assured that while Stephen Colonna 
lived, the head of the order, he was not likely to obtain 
that mastery in the state which, if leagued with a more 
ambitious or a less timid and less potent signor, might 
reward his aid in expelling Rienzi. Under all circum- 
stances, he deemed it advisable to remain aloof. Should 
Rienzi grow strong, Montreal might make the advan- 
tageous terms he desired Avith the barons; should 
Rienzi’s power decay, his pride, necessarily humbled, 
might drive him to seek the assistance and submit to 
the proposals of Montreal. The ambition of the Pro- 


208 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


vengal, though vast and daring, was not of a consistent 
and persevering nature. Action and enterprise were 
dearer to him, as yet, than the rewards which they 
proffered; and if baffled in one quarter, he turned him- 
self, with the true spirit of the knight-errant, to any 
other field for his achievements. Louis, King of 
Hungary, stern, warlike, implacable, seeking ven- 
geance for the murder of his brother, the ill-fated 
husband of Joanna (the beautiful and guilty Queen of 
Naples, — the Mary Stuart of Italy), had already pre- 
pared himself to subject the garden of Campania to the 
Hungarian yoke. Already his bastard brother had 
entered Italy, — already some of the Neapolitan states 
had declared in his favor; already promises had been 
held out by the northern monarch to the scattered 
companies; and already those fierce mercenaries gath- 
ered menacingly round the frontiers of that Eden of 
Italy, attracted, as vultures to the carcass^ by the prep- 
aration of war and the hope of plunder. Such was the 
field to which the bold mind of Montreal now turned 
its thoughts; and his soldiers had joyfully conjectured 
his design when they had heard him fix Terracina as 
their bourne. Provident of every resource, and refining 
his audacious and unprincipled valor by a sagacity which 
promised, when years had more matured and sobered his 
restless chivalry, to rank him among the most dangerous 
enemies Italy had ever known, on the first sign of 
Louis’s warlike intentions, Montreal had seized and 
fortified a strong castle on that delicious coast beyond 
Terracina, by which lies the celebrated pass once held 
by Eabius against Hannibal, and which Nature has so 
favored for war as for peace that a handful of armed 
men might stop the march of an army. The possession 
of such a fortress on the very frontiers of Naples gave 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 209 


Montreal an importance of which he trusted to avail 
himself with the Hungarian king; and now, thwarted 
in his more grand and aspiring projects upon Kome, his 
sanguine, active, and elastic spirit congratulated itself 
upon the resource it had secured. 

The band halted at nightfall on this side the Pontine 
Marshes, seizing without scruple some huts and sheds, 
from which they ejected the miserable tenants, and 
slaughtering with no greater ceremony the swine, cattle, 
and poultry of a neighboring farm. Shortly after sun- 
rise they crossed those fatal swamps which had already 
been partially drained by Boniface VIII. ; and Mon- 
treal, refreshed by sleep, reconciled to his late mor- 
tification by the advantages opened to him in the 
approaching war with Naples, and rejoicing as he 
approached a home which held one who alone divided 
his heart with ambition, had resumed all the gayety 
which belonged to his Gallic birth and his reckless 
habits. And that deadly but consecrated road, where 
yet may be- seen the labors of Augustus, in the canal 
which had witnessed the Voyage so humorously described 
by Horace, echoed with the loud laughter and frequent 
snatches of wild song by which the barbarian robbers 
enlivened their rapid march. 

It was noon when the company entered upon that 
romantic pass I have before referred to, — the ancient 
Lantulse. High to the left rose steep and lofty rocks, 
then covered by the prodigal verdure and the countless 
flowers of the closing May; while to the right the sea, 
gentle as a lake, and blue as heaven, rippled musically 
at their feet. Montreal, who largely possessed the 
poetry of his land, which is so eminently allied with 
a love of nature, might at another time have enjoyed 
the beauty of the scene; but at that moment less 

VOL. I. — 14 


210 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


external and more household images were busy within 
him. 

Abruptly ascending where a winding path up the 
mountain ojBfered a rough and painful road to their 
horses’ feet, the band at length arrived before a strong 
fortress of gray stone, whose towers were concealed by 
the lofty foliage, until they emerged sullenly and sud- 
denly from the laughing verdure. The sound of the 
bugle, the pennon of the knight, the rapid watchword, 
produced a loud shout of welcome from a score or two 
of grim soldiery on the walls; the portcullis was raised, 
and Montreal, throwing himself hastily from his pant- 
ing steed, sprung across the threshold of a jutting porch, 
and traversed a huge hall, when a lady — young, fair, 
and richly dressed — met him with a step equally 
swift, and fell breathless and overjoyed into his arms. 

“ My Walter! my dear, dear Walter; welcome, — ten 
thousand welcomes ! ” 

“Adeline, my beautiful, my adored, — I see thee 
again ! ” 

Such were the greetings interchanged as Montreal 
pressed his lady to his heart, kissing away her tears, 
and lifting her face to his, while he gazed on its deli- 
cate bloom with all the wistful anxiety of affection after 
absence. 

“Fairest,” said he, tenderly, “thou hast pined, thou 
hast lost roundness and color since we parted. Come, 
come, thou art too gentle or too foolish for a soldier’s 
love.” 

“Ah, Walter!” replied Adeline, clinging to him, 
“ now thou art returned, and I shall be well. Thou 
wilt not leave me again a long, long time.” 

“Sweet one, no!” and flinging his arm round her 
waist, the lovers — for alas! they were not wedded! — 
retired to the more private chambers of the castle. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 211 


CHAPTEE 11. 

The Life of Love and War. — The Messenger of Peace. — The 
Joust. 

Girt with his soldiery, secure in his feudal hold, 
enchanted with the beauty of the earth, sky, and sea 
around, and passionately adoring his Adeline, Montreal 
for a while forgot all his more stirring projects and his 
ruder occupations. His nature was capable of great 
tenderness, as of great ferocity; and his heart smote 
him when he looked at the fair cheek of his lady, and 
saw that even his presence did not suffice to bring back 
the smile and the fresh hues of old. Often he cursed 
that fatal oath of his knightly order which forbade him 
to wed, though with one more than his equal; and 
remorse embittered his happiest hours. That gentle 
lady in that robber hold, severed from all she had been 
taught most to prize, — mother, friends, and fair fame, 
— only loved her seducer the more intensely ; only the 
more concentrated upon one object all the womanly and 
tender feelings denied every other and less sinful vent. 
But she felt her shame, though she sought to conceal 
it, and a yet more gnawing grief than even that of shame 
contributed to prey upon her spirits and undermine her 
health. Yet, withal, in Montreal’s presence she was 
happy even in regret; and in her declining health she 
had at least a consolation in the hope to die while his 
love was undiniinished. Sometimes they macje short 
excursions, for the disturbed state of the country for- 
bade them to wander far from the castle, through the 


212 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


sunny woods, and along the glassy sea, which make the 
charm of that delicious scenery; and that mixture of 
the savage with the tender, the wild escort, the tent in 
some green glade in the woods at noon, the lute and 
voice of Adeline, with the fierce soldiers grouped and 
listening at the distance, might have well suited the 
verse of Ariosto, and harmonized singularly with that 
strange, disordered, yet chivalric time in which the 
Classic South became the seat of the Northern Romance. 
Still, however, Montreal maintained his secret inter- 
course with the Hungarian king, and, plunged in new 
projects, willingly forsook for the present all his designs 
on Rome. Yet deemed he that his more august ambi- 
tion was only delayed, and, bright in the more distant 
prospects of his adventurous career, rose the Capitol of 
Rome and shone the sceptre of the Csesars. 

One day, as Montreal, with a small troop in attend- 
ance, passed on horseback near the walls of Terracina, 
the gates were suddenly thrown open, and a numerous 
throng issued forth, preceded by a singular figure, whose 
steps they followed bareheaded and with loud blessings ; 
a train of monks closed the procession, chanting a hymn, 
of which the concluding words were as follows: — 

“ Beauteous on the mountains — lo, 

The feet of him glad tidings gladly bringing ; 

The flowers along his pathway grow, 

And voices, heard aloft, to angel harps are singing ; 
And strife and slaughter cease 
Before thy blessed way, Young Messenger of Peace ! 

O’er the mount, and through the moor, 

Glide thy holy steps secure. 

Day and night no fear thou knowest, 

Lonely, — hut with God thou goest. 

Where the Heathen rage the fiercest, 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 213 


Through the armed throng thou piercest. 

For thy coat of mail, hedight 
In thy spotless robe of white. 

For the sinful sword, — thy hand 
Bearing bright the silver wand. 

Through the camp, and through the court, 

Through the bandit’s gloomy fort, 

On the mission of the dove, 

Speeds the minister of love ; 

By a word the wildest taming, 

And the world to Christ reclaiming : 

While, as once the waters trod, 

By the footsteps of thy God, 

War and wrath and rapine cease. 

Hush’d round thy charmed path, 0 Messenger of Peace! ” 

The stranger to whom these honors were paid was a 
young, unbearded man, clothed in white wrought with 
silver : he was unarmed and barefooted ; in his hand he 
held a tall silver wand. Montreal and his party halted 
in astonishment and wonder; and the knight, spurring 
his horse towards the crowd, confronted the stranger. 

“How, friend,” quoth the Provencal, “is thine a 
new order of pilgrims, or what especial holiness has 
won thee this homage ? ” 

“ Back, back ! ” cried some of the bolder of the crowd; 
“ let not the robber dare arrest the Messenger of Peace. ” 

Montreal waved his hand disdainfully. 

“ I speak not to you, good sirs , and the worthy friars 
in your rear know full well that I never injured herald 
or palmer. ” 

The monks, ceasing from their hymn, advanced hastily 
to the spot; and indeed the devotion of Montreal had 
ever induced him to purchase the good will of whatever 
monastery neighbored his wandering home. 

“ My son,” said the eldest of the brethren, “ this is a 


214 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


strange spectacle, and a sacred; and when thou learnest 
all, thou wilt rather give the messenger a passport of 
safety from the unthinking courage of thy friends than 
intercept his path of peace.” 

“Ye puzzle still more my simple brain,” said Mon- 
treal, impatiently. “Let the youth speak for himself; 
I perceive that on his mantle are the arms of Rome 
blended with other quarterings, which are a mystery 
to me, — though sufficiently versed in heraldic art, as 
befits a noble and a knight.” 

“ Signor,” said the youth, gravely, “ know in me the 
messenger of Cola di Rienzi, Tribune of Rome, charged 
with letters to many a baron and prince in the ways 
between Rome and Naples. The arms wrought upon 
my mantle are those of the Pontifi*, the City, and the 
Tribune.” 

“ Umph; thou must have hold nerves to traverse the 
Campagna with no other weapon than that stick of 
silver! ” 

“Thou art mistaken, sir knight,” replied the youth, 
boldly, “ and judgest of the present by the past. Know 
that not a single robber now lurks within the Cam- 
pagna; the arms of the Tribune have rendered every 
road around the city as secure as the broadest street of 
the city itself.” 

“ Thou tellest me wonders. ” 

“ Through the forest and in the fortress, through 
the wildest solitudes, through the most populous towns, 
have my comrades borne this silver wand unmolested 
and unscathed; wherever we pass along, thousands hail 
us, and tears of joy bless the messengers of him who 
hath expelled the brigand from his hold, the tyrant 
from his castle, and insured the gains of the merchant 
and the hut of the peasant.” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 215 


Par dieu” said Montreal, with a stern smile, “I 
ought to be thankful for the preference shown to me. 
I have not yet received the commands, nor felt the 
vengeance of the Tribune; yet, methinks, my humble 
castle lies just within the patrimony of St. Peter.” 

“Pardon me, signor cavalier,” said the youth; “but 
do I address the renowned Knight of St. John, warrior 
of the Cross, yet leader of banditti 1 ” 

“ Boy, you are bold; I am Walter de Montreal.” 

“ I am bound, then, sir knight, to your castle.” 

“ Take care how thou reach it before me, or thou 
standest a fair chance of a quick exit. How now, my 
friends ! ” seeing that the crowd at these words gathered 
closer round the messenger; “ think ye that I, who have 
my mate in kings, would find a victim in an unarmed 
boy? Fie! give way, give way. Young man, follow 
me homeward; you are safe in my castle as in your 
mother’s arms.” So saying, Montreal, with great dig- 
nity and deliberate gravity, rode slowly towards his 
castle, his soldiers, wondering, at a little distance, and 
the white-robed messenger following with the crowd, 
who refused to depart; so great was their enthusiasm 
that they even ascended to the gates of the dreaded 
castle, and insisted on waiting without until the return 
of the youth assured them of his safety. 

Montreal, who, however lawless elsewhere, strictly 
preserved the rights of the meanest boor in his imme- 
diate neighborhood, and rather affected popularity with 
the poor, bade the crowd enter the courtyard, ordered his 
servitors to provide them with wine and refreshment, 
regaled the good monks in his great hall, and then led the 
way to a small room, where he received the messenger. 

“This,” said the youth, “will best explain my 
mission,” as he placed a letter before Montreal. 


216 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


The knight cut the silk with his dagger, and read 
the epistle with great composure. 

“ Your Tribune,” said he, when he had finished it, 
‘‘has learned the laconic style of power very soon. He 
orders me to render this castle, and vacate the papal 
territory, within ten days. He is obliging; I must 
have breathing-time to consider the proposal: be seated, 
I pray you, young sir. Forgive me, but I should have 
imagined that your lord had enough upon his hands 
with his Koman barons, to make him a little more 
indulgent to us foreign visitors. Stephen Colonna — ” 
“ Is returned to Eome, and has taken the oath of 
allegiance; the Savelli, the Orsini, the Frangipani, 
have all subscribed their submission to the Buono 
Stato. ” 

“ How! ” cried Montreal, in great surprise. 

"Not only have they returned, but they have sub- 
mitted to the dispersion of all their mercenaries and 
the dismantling of all their fortifications. The iron of 
the Orsini palace now barricades the Capitol, and the 
stonework of the Colonna and the Savelli has added 
new battlements to the gates of the Lateran and St. 
Laurence. ” 

“Wonderful man!” said Montreal, with reluctant 
admiration. “ By what means was this effected ? ” 

" A stern command and a strong force to back it. 
At the first sound of the great bell, twenty thousand 
Romans rise in arms. What to such an army are the 
brigands of an Orsini or a Colonna ? Sir knight, your 
valor and renown make even Rome admire you; and I, 
a Roman, bid you beware.” 

" Well, I thank thee, — thy news, friend, robs me of 
breath. So the barons submit, then? ” 

“Yes; on the first day, one of the Colonna, the Lord 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 217 

Adrian, took the oath; within a week, Stephen, assured 
of safe conduct, left Palestrina, the Savelli in his train; 
the Orsini followed, — even Martino di Porto has silently 
succumbed. ” 

“ The Tribune — but is that his dignity ? Methought 
he was to be king — ” 

“ He was offered, and he refused, the title. His pre- 
sent rank, which arrogates no patrician honors, went far 
to conciliate the nobles.” 

“ A wise knave ! — I beg pardon, a sagacious prince ! 
Well, then, the Tribune lords it mightily, I suppose, over 
the great Roman names 1 ” 

“Pardon me, — he enforces impartial justice from 
peasant or patrician; but he preserves to the nobles all 
their just privileges and legal rank. ” 

“ Ha ! and the vain puppets, so they keep the sem- 
blance, scarce miss the substance, — I understand. But 
this shows genius. The Tribune is unwed, I think. 
Does he look among the Colonna for a wife 1 ” 

“ Sir knight, the Tribune is already married; within 
three days after his ascension to power, he won and bore 
home the daughter of the Baron di Raselli. ” 

“ Raselli ! no great name ; he might have done better. ” 

“But it is said,” resumed the youth, smiling, “that 
the Tribune will shortly be allied to the Colonna, through 
his fair sister the Signora Irene. The Baron di Gastello 
WOOS her.” 

“What, Adrian Colonna! Enough! you have con- 
vinced me that a man who contents the people and 
awes or conciliates the nobles is born for empire. My 
answer to this letter I will send myself. For your news, 
sir messenger, accept this jewel;” and the knight took 
from his finger a gem of some price. “ Nay, shrink not; 
it was as freely given to me as it is now to thee. ” 


218 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


The youth, who had been agreeably surprised and 
impressed by the manner of the renowned freebooter, 
and who was not a little astonished himself with the 
ease and familiarity with which he had been relating to 
Fra Moreale, in his own fortress, the news of E-ome, 
bowed low as he accepted the gift. 

The astute Pro venial, who saw the evident impression 
he had made, perceived also that it might be of advan- 
tage in delaying the measures he might deem it expedient 
to adopt. “ Assure the Tribune, ” said he, on dismissing 
the messenger, “ shouldst thou return ere my letter arrive, 
that I admire his genius, hail his power, and will not 
fail to consider as favorably as I may of his demand. ” 

“ Better, ” said the messenger, warmly (he was of good 
blood and gentle bearing), — “ better ten tyrants for our 
enemy than one Montreal ! ” 

“ An enemy ! Believe me, sir, I seek no enmity with 
princes who know how to govern, or a people that has 
the wisdom at once to rule and to obey. ” 

The whole of that day, however, Montreal remained 
thoughtful and uneasy ; he despatched trusty messengers 
to the governor of Aquila (who was then in correspond- 
ence with Louis of Hungary), to Naples, and to Borne; 
the last charged with a letter to the Tribune, which, 
without absolutely compromising himself, affected sub- 
mission, and demanded only a longer leisure for the 
preparations of departure. But at the same time fresh 
fortifications were added to the castle, ample provisions 
were laid in, and, night and day, spies and scouts were 
stationed along the pass and in the town of Terracina. 
Montreal was precisely the chief who prepared most for 
war when most he pretended peace. 

One morning, the fifth from the appearance of the 
Boman messenger, Montreal, after narrowly surveying 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 219 


fiis outworks and his stores, and feeling satisfied that 
he could hold out at least a month’s siege, repaired, 
with a gayer countenance than he had lately worn, to 
the chamber of Adeline. 

The lady was seated by the casement of the tower, 
from which might he seen the glorious landscape of 
woods and vales and orange-groves, — a strange garden 
for such a palace ! As she leaned her face upon her 
hand, with her profile slightly turned to Montreal, there 
was something ineffably graceful in the bend of her 
neck; the small head so expressive of gentle blood, — 
with the locks parted in front in that simple fashion 
which modern times have so happily revived. But 
the expression of the half-averted face, the abstracted 
intentness of the gaze, and the profound stillness of 
the attitude were so sad and mournful that Montreal’s 
purposed greeting of gallantry and gladness died upon 
his lips. He approached in silence, and laid his hand 
upon her shoulder. 

Adeline turned, and taking the hand in hers, pressed 
it to her heart, and smiled away all her sadness. “ Dear- 
est, ” said Montreal, “ couldst thou know how much 
any shadow of grief on thy bright face darkens my 
heart, thou wouldst never grieve. But no wonder that 
in these rude walls, — no female of equal rank near thee, 
and such mirth as Montreal can summon to his halls 
grating to thy ear, — no wonder that thou repentest thee 
of thy choice. ” 

“Ah, no, no, Walter; I never repent. I did hut 
think of our child as you entered. Alas! he was our 
only child! How fair he was, Walter; how he re- 
sembled thee ! ” 

“ Hay, he had thine eyes and brow, ” replied the 
knight, with a faltering voice, and turning away his head, 


220 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

“ Walter, ” resumed the lady, sighing, “ do you remem- 
ber ? — this is his birthday. He is ten years old to-day. 
We have loved each other eleven years, and thou hast 
not tired yet of thy poor Adeline.” 

“As well might the saints weary of paradise,” re- 
plied Montreal, with an enamored tenderness which 
changed into softness the whole character of his heroic 
countenance. 

, “ Could I think so, I should indeed be blest ! ” 
answered Adeline. “But a little while longer, and the 
few charms I yet possess must fade; and what other 
claim have I on thee ? ” 

“ All claim : the memory of thy first blushes, thy 
first kiss, of thy devoted sacrifices, of thy patient 
wanderings, of thy uncomplaining love! Ah, Adeline, 
we are of Provence, not of Italy ; and when did knight 
of Provence avoid his foe, or forsake his love ? But 
enough, dearest, of home and melancholy for to-day. 
I come to bid thee forth. I have sent on the servitors 
to pitch our tent beside the sea, — we will enjoy the 
orange-blossoms while we may. Ere another week 
pass over us, we may have sterner pastime and closer 
confines. ” 

“How, dearest Walter! thou dost not apprehend 
danger ? ” 

“ Thou speakest, lady -bird,” said Montreal, laughing, 
“as if danger were novelty; methinks, by this time 
thou shouldst know it as the atmosphere we breathe. ” 

“Ah, Walter, is this to last forever? Thou art now 
rich and renowned; canst thou not abandon this career 
of strife ? ” 

“ Now, out on thee, Adeline! What are riches and 
renown but the means to power! And for strife, the 
shield of warriors was my cradle, — pray the saints it be 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 221 


my bier! These wild and wizard extremes of life — 
from the bower to the tent, from the cavern to the 
palace; to-day a wandering exile, to-morrow the equal 
of kings — make the true element of the chivalry of my 
Norman sires. Normandy taught me war, and sweet 
Provence love. Kiss me, dear Adeline; and now let 
thy handmaids attire thee. Forget not thy lute, sweet 
one. We will rouse the echoes with the songs of 
Provence.” 

The ductile temper of Adeline yielded easily to the 
gayety of her lord; and the party soon sallied from the 
castle towards the spot in which Montreal had designed 
their resting-place during the heats of day. But already 
prepared for all surprise, the castle was left strictly 
guarded , and besides the domestic servitors of the castle , 
a detachment of ten soldiers, completely armed, accom- 
panied the lovers. Montreal himself wore his corselet, 
and his squires followed with his helmet and lance. 
Beyond the narrow defile at the base of the castle, the 
road at that day opened into a broad patch of verdure, 
circled on all sides, save that open to the sea, by wood, 
interspersed with myrtle and orange, and a wilderness 
of odorous shrubs. In this space, and sheltered by the 
broad-spreading and classic (so improperly trans- 
lated into the English heech), a gay pavilion was 
prepared, which commanded the view of the sparkling 
sea, — shaded from the sun, but open to the gentle 
breeze. This was poor Adeline’s favorite recreation, 
if recreation it might be called. She rejoiced to escape 
from the gloomy walls of her castellated prison, and to 
enjoy the sunshine and the sweets of that voluptuous 
climate without the fatigue which of late all exercise 
occasioned her. It was a gallantry on the part of 
Montreal, who foresaw how short an interval might 


222 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES 


elapse before the troops of Kienzi besieged his walls, 
and who was himself no less at home in the bower than 
in the field. 

As they reclined within the pavilion, — the lover and 
his lady, — of the attendants without, some lounged idly 
on the beach ; some prepared the awning of a pleasure- 
boat against the decline of the sun; some, in a ruder 
tent, out of sight in the wood, arranged the mid-day 
repast; while the strings of the lute, touched by Mon- 
treal himself with a careless skill, gave their music to 
the dreamy stillness of the noon. 

While thus employed, one of Montreal’s scouts arrived 
breathless and heated at the tent. 

“ Captain,” said he, “ a company of thirty lances com- 
pletely armed, with a long retinue of squires and pages, 
have just quitted Terracina. Their banners bear the 
twofold insignia of Home and the Colonna. ” 

“ Ho ! ” said Montreal, gayly, “ such a troop is a wel- 
come addition to our company ; send our squire hither. ” 
The squire appeared. 

“ Hie thee on thy steed towards the procession thou 
wilt meet within the pass (nay, sweet lady mine, no 
forbiddal!), seek the chief, and say that the good knight 
Walter de Montreal sends him greeting, and prays him, 
in passing our proper territory, to rest awhile with us as 
a welcome guest; and — stay ! — add that if to while an 
hour or so in gentle pastime be acceptable to him, 
Walter de Montreal would rejoice to break a lance with 
him, or any knight in his train, in honor of our respec- 
tive ladies. Hie thee quick ! ” 

“ Walter, Walter,” began Adeline, who had that keen 
and delicate sensitiveness to her situation which her 
reckless lord often wantonly forgot, — “Walter, dear 
Walter, canst thou think it honor to — ” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 223 

“ Hush thee, sweet Fleur-de-lis ! Thou hast not 
seen pastime this many a day ; I long to convince thee 
that thou art still the fairest lady in Italy, — ay, and of 
Christendom. But these Italians are craven knights, 
and thou needst not fear that my proffer will be accepted. 
But in truth, lady mine, I rejoice, for graver objects, 
that chance throws a Roman noble, perhaps a Colonna, 
in my way, — women understand not these matters, 
and aught concerning Rome touches us home at this 
moment. ” 

With that the knight frowned, as was his wont in 
thought; and Adeline ventured to say no more, but 
retired to the interior division of the pavilion. 

Meanwhile the squire approached the procession, that 
had now reached the middle of the pass. And a stately 
and gallant company it was: if the complete harness of 
the soldiery seemed to attest a warlike purpose, it was 
contradicted on the other hand by a numerous train of 
unarmed squires and pages gorgeously attired, while the 
splendid blazon of two heralds preceding the standard- 
bearers proclaimed their object as peaceful, and their 
path a^ sacred. It required but a glance at the company 
to tell the leader. Arrayed in a breastplate of steel, 
wrought profusely with gold arabesques, over which 
was a mantle of dark green velvet, bordered with pearls, 
while above his long dark locks waved a black ostrich 
plume in a high Macedonian cap, such as, I believe, is 
now worn by the Grand Master of the order of St. 
Constantine, rode in the front of the party a young 
cavalier, distinguished from his immediate comrades, 
partly by his graceful presence, and partly by his 
splendid dress. 

The squire approached respectfully, and, dismount- 
ing, delivered himself of his charge. 


224 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


The young cavalier smiled, as he answered : “ Bear 
back to Sir Walter de Montreal the greeting of Adrian 
Colonna, Baron di Gastello, and say that the solemn 
object of my present journey will scarce permit me to 
encounter the formidable lance of so celebrated a knight ; 
and I regret this the more, inasmuch as I may not yield 
to any dame the palm of my liege lady’s beauty. I 
must live in hope of a happier occasion. For the rest, 
I will cheerfully abide for some few hours the guest of 
so courteous a host.” 

The squire bowed low. “ My master,” said he, 
hesitatingly, " will grieve much to miss so noble an 
opponent. But my message refers to all this knightly 
and gallant train ; and if the Lord Adrian di Gastello 
deems himself forbidden the joust by the object of his 
present journey, surely one of his comrades will be his 
proxy with my master. ” 

Out and quickly spoke a young noble by the side of 
Adrian, Biccardo Annihaldi, who afterwards did good 
service both to the Tribune and to Borne, and whose 
valor brought him, in later life, to an untimely end. 

“ By the Lord Adrian’s permission,” cried he, “ I will 
break a lance with — ” 

“Hush, Annihaldi!” interrupted Adrian. “And 
you, sir squire, know that Adrian di Gastello permits 
no proxy in arms. Advise the Knight of St. John that 
we accept his hospitality ; and if, after some converse 
on graver matters, he should still desire so light an 
entertainment, I will forget that I am the ambassador 
to Naples, and remember only that I am a Knight of the 
Empire. You have your answer.” 

The squire with much ceremony made his obeisance, 
remounted his steed, and returned in a half-gallop to his 
master. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 225 

‘‘Forgive me, dear Annibaldi,” said Adrian, “ that I 
balked your valor; and believe me that I never more 
longed to break a lance against any man than I do against 
this boasting Frenchman. But bethink you that though 
to us, brought up in the dainty laws of chivalry, Walter 
de Montreal is the famous knight of Provence, to the 
Tribune of Eome, whose grave mission we now fulfil, 
he is but the mercenary captain of a free company. 
Grievously in his eyes should we sully our dignity by 
so wanton and irrelevant a holiday conflict with a 
declared and professional brigand.” 

“For all that,” said Annibaldi, “the brigand ought 
not to boast that a Koman knight shunned a Provencal 
lance.” 

“ Cease, I pray thee! ” said Adrian, impatiently. In 
fact, the young Colonna already chafed bitterly against 
his discreet and dignified rejection of MontreaPs proffer, 
and recollecting with much pique the disparaging manner 
in which the Provencal had spoken of the Roman chiv- 
alry, as well as a certain tone of superiority, which in 
all warlike matters Montreal had assumed over him, — 
he now felt his cheek burn and his lip quiver. Highly 
skilled in the martial accomplishments of his time, he 
had a natural and excusable desire to prove that he was 
at least no unworthy antagonist even of the best lance 
in Italy; and, added to this, the gallantry of the age 
made him feel it a sort of treason to his mistress to 
forego any means of asserting her perfections. 

It was, therefore, with considerable irritation that 
Adrian, as the pavilion of Montreal became visible, 
perceived the squire returning to him. And the reader 
will judge how much this was increased when the latter, 
once more dismounting, accosted him thus : — 

“ My master, the Knight of St. John, on hearing the 

VOL. I. — 15 


226 RIENZr, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

courteous answer of the Lord Adrian di Gastello, bids 
me say that lest the graver converse the Lord Adrian 
refers to should mar gentle and friendly sport, he ven- 
tures respectfully to suggest that the tilt should preface 
the converse. The sod before the tent is so soft and 
smooth that even a fall could be attended with no 
danger to knight or steed.” 

“ By our lady ! ” cried Adrian and Annibaldi in a 
breath, “but thy last words are discourteous; and,” 
proceeded Adrian, recovering himself, “ since thy mas- 
ter will have it so, let him look to his horse’s girths. 
I will not gainsay his fancy.” 

Montreal, who had thus insisted upon the exhibition, 
— partly, it may be, from the gay and ruffling bravado 
common still amongst his brave countrymen; partly 
because he was curious of exhibiting before those who 
might soon be his open foes his singular and unrivalled 
address in arms, — was yet more moved to it on learning 
the name of the leader of the Boman company; for 
his vain and haughty spirit, however it had disguised 
resentment at the time, had by no means forgiven 
certain warm expressions of Adrian in the palace of 
Stephen Colonna, and in the unfortunate journey to 
Corneto. While Adrian, halting at the entrance of 
the defile, aided by his squires, indignantly but care- 
fully indued the rest of his armor, and saw himself to 
the girths, stirrup-leathers, and various buckles in the 
caparison of his noble charger, Montreal in great glee 
kissed his lady, who, though too soft to be angry, was 
deeply vexed (and yet her vexation half forgotten in 
fear for his safety), snatched up her scarf of blue, which 
he threw over his breastplate, and completed his array 
with the indifference of a man certain of victory. He 
was destined, however, to one disadvantage, and that 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 227 


the greatest : his armor and lance had been brought from 
the castle, — not his war-horse. His palfrey was too 
slight to bear the great weight of his armor, nor amongst 
his troop was there one horse that for power and bone 
could match with Adrian’s. He chose, however, the 
strongest that was at hand; and a loud shout from his 
wild followers testified their admiration when he sprung 
unaided from the ground into the sdddle, — a rare and 
difficult feat of agility in a man completely arrayed in 
the ponderous armor which issued at that day from the 
forges of Milan, and was worn far more weighty in 
Italy than any other part of Europe. While both com- 
panies grouped slowly, and mingled in a kind of circle 
round the green turf, and the E-oman heralds, with 
bustling importance, attempted to marshal the spectators 
into order, Montreal rode his charger round the sward, 
forcing it into various caracoles, and exhibiting, with 
the vanity that belonged to him, his exquisite and 
practised horsemanship. 

At length Adrian, his visor down, rode slowly into 
the green space, amidst the cheers of his party. The 
two knights, at either end, gravely fronted each other: 
they made the courtesies with their lances, which, in 
friendly and sportive encounters, were customary; and, 
as they thus paused for the signal of encounter, the 
Italians trembled for the honor of their chief: Mon- 
treal’s stately height and girth of chest forming a strong, 
contrast, even in armor, to the form of his opponent, 
which was rather under the middle standard, and, 
though firmly knit, slightly and slenderly built. But 
to that perfection was skill in arms brought in those 
times, that great strength and size were far from being 
either the absolute requisites, or even the usual attri- 
butes, of the more celebrated knights; in fact, so much 


228 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


was effected by the power and the management of the 
steed that a light weight in the rider was often rather 
to his advantage than his prejudice; and even at a later 
period the most accomplished victors in the tourney, 
the French Bayard and the English Sydney, were far 
from remarkable either for bulk or stature. 

Whatever the superiority of Montreal in physical 
power was, in much, counterbalanced by the inferiority 
of his horse, which, though a thick-built and strong 
Calabrian, had neither the blood, bone, nor practised 
discipline of the northern charger of the Koman. The 
shining coat of the latter, coal black, was set off by a 
scarlet cloth wrought in gold; the neck and shoulders 
were clad in scales of mail ; and from the forehead pro- 
jected a long point, like the horn of a unicorn, while 
on its crest waved a tall plume of scarlet and white 
feathers. As the mission of Adrian to Naples was that 
of pomp and ceremony to a court of great splendor, so 
his array and retinue were befitting the occasion and the 
passion for show that belonged to the time ; and the 
very bridle of his horse, which was three inches broad, 
was decorated with gold, and even jewels. The knight 
himself was clad in mail which had tested the finest 
art of the celebrated Ludovico of Milan ; and, altogether, 
his appearance Avas unusually gallant and splendid, and 
seemed still more so beside the plain but brightly pol- 
ished and artfully flexile armor of Montreal (adorned 
only with his lady’s scarf), and the common and rude 
mail of his charger. This contrast, however, Avas not 
welcome to the ProveiiQal, Avhose vanity was especially 
indulged in Avarlike equipments; and Avho, had he 
foreseen the “ pastime” that aAvaited him, would have 
outshone even the Colonna. 

The trumpeters of either party gave a short blast, — 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 229 


the knights remained erect as statues of iron; a second, 
and each slightly bent over his saddle-bow; a third, 
and with spears couched, slackened reins, and at full 
speed, on they rushed, and fiercely they met midway. 
With the reckless arrogance which belonged to him, 
Montreal had imagined that at the first touch of his 
lance Adrian would have been unhorsed; but to his 
great surprise the young Koman remained firm, and 
amidst the shouts of his party passed on to the other 
end of the lists. Montreal himself was rudely shaken, 
but lost neither seat nor stirrup. 

“This can be no carpet-knight,” muttered Montreal 
between his teeth, as, this time, he summoned all his 
skill for a second encounter; while Adrian, aware of 
the great superiority of his charger, resolved to bring 
it to bear against his opponent. Accordingly, when 
the knights again rushed forward, Adrian, covering him- 
self well with his buckler, directed his care less against 
the combatant, whom he felt no lance wielded by mortal 
hand was likely to dislodge, than against the less noble 
animal he bestrode. The shock of Montreal’s charge 
was like an avalanche, — his lance shivered into a thou- 
sand pieces, Adrian lost both stirrups, and but for the 
strong iron bows which guarded the saddle in front and 
rear, would have been fairly unhorsed; as it was, he 
was almost doubled back by the encounter, and his ears 
rung and his eyes reeled, so that for a moment or two 
he almost lost all consciousness. But his steed had 
well repaid its nurture and discipline. Just as the 
combatants closed, the animal, rearing on high, pressed 
forward with its mighty crest against its opponent with 
a force so irresistible as to drive back Montreal’s horse 
several paces; while Adrian’s lance, poised with exqui- 
site skill, striking against the Provencal’s helmet, 


230 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


somewhat rudely diverted the knight’s attention for 
the moment from his rein. Montreal, drawing the 
curb too tightly in the suddenness of his recovery, the 
horse reared on end; and, receiving at that instant full 
upon his breastplate the sharp horn and mailed crest 
of Adrian’s charger, fell back over its rider upon the 
sward. Montreal disencumbered himself in great rage 
and shame, as a faint cry from his pavilion reached his 
ear, and redoubled his mortification. He rose with a 
lightness which astonished the beholders; for so heavy 
was the armor worn at that day that few knights once 
stretched upon the ground could rise without assistance ; 
and drawing his sword, cried out fiercely, “ On foot, on 
foot! — the fall was not mine, but this accursed beast’s, 
that I must needs for my sins raise to the rank of a 
charger. Come on — ” 

“ Nay, sir knight,” said Adrian, drawing off his 
gauntlets and unbuckling his helmet, which he threw 
on the ground, “ I come to thee a guest and a friend ; 
but to fight on foot is the encounter of mortal foes. 
Did I accept thy offer, my defeat would but stain thy 
knighthood. ” 

Montreal, whose passion had beguiled him for the 
moment, sullenly acquiesced in this reasoning. Adrian 
hastened to soothe his antagonist. “ For the rest,” said 
he, “ I cannot pretend to the prize. Your lance lost me 
my stirrups; mine left you unshaken. You say right; 
the defeat, if any, was that of your steed.” 

“ We may meet again when I am more equally horsed,” 
said Montreal, still chafing. 

“Now, Our Lady forbid!” exclaimed Adrian, with 
so devout an earnestness that the bystanders could not 
refrain from laughing; and even Montreal grimly and 
half reluctantly joined in the merriment. The courtesy 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 231 


of his foe, however, conciliated and touched the more 
frank and soldierly qualities of his nature, and, com- 
posing himself, he replied, — 

“ Signor di Gastello, I rest your debtor for a courtesy 
that I have but little imitated. Howheit, if thou 
wouldst bind me to thee forever, thou wilt suffer me 
to send for my own charger, and afford me a chance to 
retrieve mine honor. With that steed, or with one 
equal to thine, which seems to me of the English breed, 
I will gage all I possess, lands, castle, and gold, sword 
and spurs, to maintain this pass, one by one, against all 
thy train.” 

Fortunately, perhaps, for Adrian ere he could reply, 
E-iccardo Annibaldi cried, with great warmth, “Sir 
knight, I have with me two steeds well practised in 
the tourney; take thy choice, and accept in me a cham- 
pion of the Eoman against the French chivalry, — there 
is my gage.” 

“Signor,” replied Montreal, with ill-suppressed de- 
light, “ thy proffer shows so gallant and free a spirit 
that it were foul sin in me to balk it. I accept thy 
gage; and whichever of thy steeds thou rejectest, in 
God’s name bring it hither, and let us waste no words 
before action.” 

Adrian, who felt that hitherto the Romans had been 
more favored by fortune than merit, vainly endeavored 
to prevent this second hazard. But Annibaldi was 
greatly chafed, and his high rank rendered it impolitic 
in Adrian to offend him by peremptory prohibition ; the 
Colonna reluctantly, therefore, yielded his assent to the 
engagement. Annibaldi’s steeds were led to the spot, 
the one a noble roan, the other a bay, of somewhat less 
breeding and bone, but still of great strength and price. 


232 HIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


Montreal, finding the choice pressed upon him, gallantly- 
selected the latter and less excellent. 

Annibaldi was soon arrayed for the encounter, and 
Adrian gave the word to the trumpeters. The Roman 
was of a stature almost equal to that of Montreal, and 
though some years younger, seemed, in his armor, nearly 
of the same thews and girth, so that the present antago- 
nists appeared at the first glance more evenly matched 
than the last. But this time Montreal, well horsed, 
inspired to the utmost by shame and pride, felt himself 
a match for an army ; and he met the young baron with 
such prowess that while the very plume on his casque 
seemed scarcely stirred, the Italian was thrown several 
paces from his steed, and it was not till some moments 
after his visor was removed by his squires that he recov- 
ered ^his senses. This event restored Montreal to all 
his natural gayety of humor, and effectually raised the 
spirAs of his followers, who had felt much humbled by 
the previous encounter. 

He himself assisted Annibaldi to rise with great 
courtesy, and a profusion of compliments, which the 
proud Roman took in stern silence, and then led the 
way to the pavilion, loudly ordering the banquet to be 
spread. Annibaldi, however, loitered behind; and 
Adrian, who penetrated his thoughts, and who saw 
that over their cups a quarrel between the Provenqal 
and his friend was likely to ensue, drawing him aside, 
said: “ Me thinks, dear Annibaldi, it would be better if 
you, with the chief of our following, were to proceed 
onward to Fondi, where I will join you at sunset. My 
squires, and some eight lances, will suffice for my safe- 
guard here; and, to say truth, I desire a few private 
words with our strange host, in the hope that he may 


HIENZI, THE LAST OE THE TRIBUNES. 233 


be peaceably induced to withdraw from hence without 
the help of our Roman troops, who have enough else- 
where to feed their valor.” 

Annibaldi pressed his companion’s hand. “ I un- 
derstand thee,” he replied with a slight blush; “and, 
indeed, I could but ill brook the complacent triumph 
of the barbarian. I accept thy offer.” 


234 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTER III. 

The Conversation between the Roman and the Proven9al. — Ade- 
line’s History. — The Moonlit Sea. — The Lute and the Song. 

As soon as Annibaldi with the greater part of the 
retinue was gone, Adrian, divesting himself of his 
heavy greaves, entered alone the pavilion of the Knight 
of St. John. Montreal had already doffed all his 
armor, save the breastplate, and he now stepped for- 
ward to welcome his guest with the winning and easy 
grace which better suited his birth than his profession. 
He received Adrian’s excuses for the absence of Anni- 
baldi and the other knights of his train with a smile 
which seemed to prove how readily he divined the cause, 
and conducted him to the other and more private divi- 
sion of the pavilion, in which the repast (rendered 
acceptable by the late exercise of guest and host) was 
prepared; and here Adrian for the first time discovered 
Adeline. Long inurement to the various and roving 
life of her lover, joined to a certain pride which she 
derived from conscious though forfeited rank, gave to 
the outward manner of that beautiful lady an ease and 
freedom which often concealed, even from Montreal, 
her sensitiveness to her unhappy situation. At times, 
indeed, when alone with Montreal, whom she loved 
with all the devotion of romance, she was sensible only 
to the charm of a presence which consoled her for all 
things; but in his frequent absence or on the admis- 
sion of any stranger, the illusion vanished, the reality 
returned. Poor lady ! Nature had not formed, educa- 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 235 

tion had not reared, habit had not reconciled her to the 
breath of shame! 

The young Colonna was much struck by her beauty, 
and more by her gentle and high-born grace. Like her 
lord, she appeared younger than she was; time seemed 
to spare a bloom which an experienced eye might have 
told was destined to an early grave; and there was 
something almost girlish in the lightness of her form, 
the braided luxuriance of her rich auburn hair, and the 
color that went and came, not only with every moment, 
but almost with every word. The contrast between her 
and Montreal became them both, — it was the contrast 
of devoted reliance and protecting strength : each looked 
fairer in the presence of the other; and as Adrian sat 
down to the well-laden board, he thought he had never 
seen a pair more formed for the poetic legends of their 
native troubadours. 

Montreal conversed gayly upon a thousand matters, 
pressed the wine-flasks, and selected for his guest the 
most delicate portions of the delicious spicola of the 
neighboring sea, and the rich flesh of the wild boar of 
the Pontine Marshes. 

“ Tell me,” said Montreal, as their hunger was now 
appeased, — “tell me, noble Adrian, how fares your 
kinsman. Signor Stephen? A brave old man for his 
years ! ” 

“ He bears him as the youngest of us,” answered 
Adrian. ' 

“Late events must have shocked him a little,” said 
Montreal, with an arch smile. “ Ah, you look grave, 
— yet commend my foresight. I was the first who 
prophesied to thy kinsman the rise of Cola di Rienzi ; 
he seems a great man, — never more great than in con- 
ciliating the Colonna and the Orsini.” 


7 . 


236 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

“The Tribune,” returned Adrian, evasively, “is 
certainly a man of extraordinary genius. And now, 
seeing him command, my only wonder is how he ever 
brooked to obey, — majesty seems a very part of him.” 

“ Men who win power, easily put on its harness, 
dignity,” answered Montreal; “and if I hear aright 
(pledge me to your lady’s health), the Tribune, if not 
himself nobly born, will soon he nobly connected. ” 

“ He is already married to a Kaselli, an old Roman 
house,” replied Adrian. 

“ You evade my pursuit, — Le doulx soupir ! le doulx 
soupir ! as the old Cabestan has it,” said Montreal, 
laughing. “Well, you have pledged me one cup to 
your lady; pledge another to the fair Irene, the Tri- 
bune’s sister, — always provided the two are not one. — 
You smile and shake your head.” 

“I do not disguise from you, sir knight,” answered 
Adrian, “ that when my present embassy is over, I trust 
the alliance between the Tribune and a Colonna will go 
far towards the benefit of both.” 

“ I have heard rightly, then,” said Montreal, in a 
grave and thoughtful tone. “ Rienzi’s power must, 
indeed, be great.” 

“ Of that my mission is a proof. Are you aware. 
Signor de Montreal, that Louis, King of Hungary — ” 

“How! what of him r’ 

“ Has referred the decision of the feud between him- 
self and Joanna of Naples, respecting the death of her 
royal spouse, his brother, to the fiat of the Tribune? 
This is the first time, methinks, since the death of 
Constantine, that so great a confidence and so high a 
charge were ever intrusted to a Roman.” 

“By all the saints in the calendar,” cried Montreal, 
crossing himself, “this news is indeed amazing! The 



KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 237 

fierce Louis of Hungary waive the right of the sword, 
and choose other umpire than the field of battle! ” 

“And this,” continued Adrian, in a significant tone, 
— ■ “ this it was which induced me to obey your cour- 
teous summons. I know, brave Montreal, that you 
hold intercourse with Louis. Louis has given to the 
Tribune the best pledge of his amity and alliance ; will 
you do wisely if you — ” 

“ Wage war with the Hungarian’s ally? ” interrupted 
Montreal. “ This you were about to add ; the same 
thought crossed myself. My lord, pardon me, — Italians 
sometimes invent what they wish. On the honor of a 
Knight of the Empire, these tidings are the naked 
truth ? ” 

“By my honor and on the Cross,” answered Adrian, 
drawing himself up ; “ and in proof thereof, I am now 
bound to Naples to settle with the queen the prelimi- 
naries of the appointed trial.” 

“ Two crowned heads before the tribunal of a ple- 
beian, and one a defendant against the charge of mur- 
der ! ” muttered Montreal ; “ the news might well amaze 
me!” 

He remained musing and silent a little while, till, 
looking up, he caught Adeline’s tender gaze fixed upon 
him with that deep solicitude with which she watched 
the outward effect of schemes and projects she was too 
soft to desire to know, and too innocent to share. 

“Lady mine,” said the Provencal, fondly, “how 
sayest thou? Must we abandon our mountain castle 
and these wild woodland scenes for the dull walls of 
a city? I fear me so. — The Lady Adeline,” he con- 
tinued, turning to Adrian, “ is of a singular bias; she 
hates the gay crowds of streets and thoroughfares, and 
esteems no palace like the solitary outlaw’s hold. Yet, 


238 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


methinks, she might outshine all the faces of Italy, — 
thy mistress, Lord Adrian, of course excepted.” 

“ It is an exception which only a lover, and that too 
a betrothed lover, would dare to make,” replied Adrian, 
gallantly. 

“Hay,” said Adeline, in a voice singularly sweet 
and clear, — “ nay, I know well at what price to value 
my lord’s flattery and Signor di Gastello’s courtesy. 
But you are bound, sir knight, to a court that, if fame 
speak true, boasts in its queen the very miracle and 
mould of beauty.” 

“ It is some years since I saw the Queen of Naples,” 
answered Adrian; “and I little dreamed then, when I 
gazed upon that angel face, that I should live to hear 
her accused of the foulest murder that ever stained even 
Italian royalty.” 

“And, as if resolved to prove her guilt,” said Mon- 
treal , “ erelong be sure she will marry the very man who 
did the deed. Of this I have certain proof. ” 

Thus conversing, the knights wore away the daylight, 
and beheld from the open tent the sun cast his setting 
glow over the purple sea. Adeline had long retired 
from the board, and they now saw her seated with her 
handmaids on a mound by the beach, while the sound 
of her lute faintly reached their ears. As Montreal 
caught the air, he turned from the converse, and sigh- 
ing, half shaded his face with his hand. Somehow or 
other the two knights had worn away all the little 
jealousy or pique which they had conceived against 
each other at ^ Borne. Both imbued with the soldier- 
like spirit of the age, their contest in the morning had 
served to inspire them with that strange kind of respect 
and even cordiality which one brave man even still 
(how much more at that day !) feels for another whose 


\ 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 239 

courage he has proved while vindicating his own. It 
is like the discovery of a congenial sentiment hitherto 
latent, and in a life of camps often establishes sudden 
and lasting friendship in the very lap of enmity. This 
feeling had been ripened by their subsequent familiar 
intercourse, and was increased on Adrian's side by the 
feeling that in convincing Montreal of the policy of 
withdrawing from the Eoman territories, he had ob- 
tained an advantage that well repaid whatever danger 
and delay he had undergone. 

The sigh and the altered manner of Montreal did 
not escape Adrian, and he naturally connected it with 
something relating to her whose music had been its 
evident cause. 

“Yon lovely dame,” said he, gently, “touches the 
lute with an exquisite and fairy hand, and that plain- 
tive air seems to my ear as of the minstrelsy of 
Provence. ” 

“It is the air I taught her,” said Montreal, sadly, 
“ married as it is to indifferent words, with which I 
first wooed a heart that should never have given itself 
to me ! Ay, young Colonna, many a night has my boat 
been moored beneath the starlight Sorgia that washes 
her proud father^s halls, and my voice awaked the still- 
ness of the waving sedges with a soldier’s serenade. 
Sweet memories ! bitter fruit ! ” 

“ Why bitter ? ye love each other still. ” 

“ But I am vowed to celibacy, and Adeline de Courval 
is leman where she should be wedded dame. Methinks 
I fret at that thought even more than she, — dear 
Adeline ! ” 

“ Your lady, as all would guess, is then nobly born ? ” 

“She is,” answered Montreal, with a deep and evi- 
dent feeling which, save in love, rarely, if ever, crossed 


240 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


his hardy breast, — “ she is. Our tale is a brief one ; 
We loved each other as children; her family was 
wealthier than mine; we were separated. I was given 
to understand that she abandoned me. I despaired, 
and in despair I took the cross of St. John. Chance 
threw us again together. I learned that her love was 
undecayed. Poor child! — she was even then, sir, but 
a child! I wild, reckless, and not unskilled, perhaps, 
in the arts that woo and win. She could not resist my 
suit or her own affection; we fled. In those words 
you see the thread of my after history. My sword and 
my Adeline were all my fortune. Society frowned on 
us. The Church threatened my soul , the Grand Master 
my life. I became a knight of fortune. Fate and my 
right hand favored me. I have made those who scorned 
me tremble at my name. That name shall yet blaze, 
a star or a meteor, in the front of troubled nations, and 
I may yet win by force from the pontiff the dispensation 
refused to my prayers. On the same day I may offer 
Adeline the diadem and the ring. — Eno’ of this : you 
marked Adeline’s cheek! — seems it not delicate? I 
like not that changeful flush ; and she moves languidly, — 
her step that was so blithe ! ” 

“ Change of scene and the mild South will soon restore 
her health said Adrian ; “ and in your peculiar life 
she is so little brought into contact with others, espe- 
cially of her own sex, that I trust she is but seldom 
made aware of whatever is painful in her situation. 
And woman^s love, Montreal, as we both have learned, 
is a robe that wraps her from many a storm ! ” 

“ You speak kindly,” returned the knight; “ but you 
know not all our cause of grief. Adeline's father, a 
proud sieur, died: they said of a broken heart, — but 
old men die ‘of many another disease than that! The 



KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 241 

mother, a dame who boasted her descent from princes, 
bore the matter more sternly than the sire; clamored 
for revenge, — which was odd, for she is as religious as 
a Dominican, and revenge is not Christian in a woman, 
though it is knightly in a man! Well, my lord, we 
had one boy, our only child; he was Adeline’s solace 
in my absence , — his pretty ways were worth the world 
to her! She loved him so, that — but he had her eyes, 
and looked like her when he slept — I should have 
been jealous! He grew up in our wild life, strong 
and comely; the young rogue, he would have been a 
brave knight! My evil stars led me to Milan, where 
I had business with the Visconti. One bright morning 
in June our boy was stolen; verily that June was like 
a December to us ! ” 

“ Stolen ! — how ? — by whom 1 ” 

“ The first question is answered easily : the boy was 
with his nurse in the courtyard; the idle wench left 
him for but a minute or two — so she avers — to fetch 
him some childish toy ; when she returned he was gone, — 
not a trace left, save his pretty cap with the plume in 
it! Poor Adeline, many a time have I found her kiss- 
ing that relic till it was wet with tears! ” 

“ A strange fortune , in truth. But what interest 
could — ” 

“I will tell you,” interrupted Montreal, “the only 
conjecture I could form; Adeline’s mother, on learning 
we had a son, sent to Adeline a letter that well-nigh 
broke her heart, reproaching her for her love to me, and 
so forth, as if that had made her the vilest of the sex. 
She bade her take compassion on her child, and not 
bring him up to a robber’s life, — so was she pleased 
to style the bold career of Walter de Montreal. She 
offered to rear the child in her own dull halls, and fit 

VOL. I. — 16 


242 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


him, no doubt, for a shaven pate and a monk’s cowl. 
She chafed much that a mother would not part with 
her treasure! She alone, partly in revenge, partly in 
silly compassion for Adeline’s child, partly, it may be, 
from some pious fanaticism, could, so it seemed to me, 
have robbed us of our boy. On inquiry, I learned from 
the nurse — who, but that she was of the same sex as 
Adeline, should have tasted my dagger — that in their 
walks a woman of advanced years, but seemingly of 
humble rank (that might be disguise) , had often stopped, 
and caressed and admired the child. I repaired at once 
to France , sought the old castle of De Courval : it had 
passed to the next heir, and the old widow was gone, 
none knew whither; but it was conjectured, to take the 
veil in some remote convent.” 

“ And you never saw her since ? ” 

“Yes, at E-ome,” answered Montreal, turning pale: 
“ when last there I chanced suddenly upon her ; and 
then at length I learned my boy’s fate, and the truth 
of my own surmise; she confessed to the theft, and my 
child was dead! I have not dared to tell Adeline of 
this; it seems to me as if it would be like plucking the 
shaft from the wounded side, — and she would die at 
once, bereft of the uncertainty that rankles within her. 
She has still a hope, — it comforts her; though my heart 
bleeds when I think on its vanity. Let this pass, my 
Colonna. ” 

And Montreal started to his feet, as if he strove, by 
a strong effort, to shake off the weakness that had crept 
over him in his narration. 

“ Think no more of it. Life is short : its thorns are 
many, — let us not neglect any of its flowers. This is 
piety and wisdom too ; Nature, that meant me to struggle 
and toil, gave me, happily, the sanguine heart and the 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 243 


elastic soul of France ; and I have lived long enough to 
own that to die young is not an evil. Come, Lord 
Adrian, let us join my lady ere you part, if part you 
must; the moon will be up soon, and Fondi is but a 
short journey hence. You know that though I admire 
not your Petrarch, you with more courtesy laud our 
Provencal ballads; and you must hear Adeline sing one, 
that you may prize them the more. The race of the 
Troubadours is dead, but the minstrelsy survives the 
minstrel ! ” 

Adrian, who scarce knew what comfort to administer 
to the affliction of his companion, was somewhat relieved 
by the change in his mood, though his more grave and 
sensitive nature was a little startled at its suddenness. 
But, as we have before seen, Montreal’s spirit (and 
this made perhaps its fascination) was as a varying and 
changeful sky: the gayest sunshine and the fiercest 
storm swept over it in rapid alternation ; and elements 
of singular might and grandeur, which, properly directed 
and concentrated, would have made him the blessing and 
glory of his time, were wielded with a boyish levity, 
roused into war and desolation, or lulled into repose and 
smoothness, with all the suddenness of chance, and all 
the fickleness of caprice. 

Sauntering down to the beach, the music of Adeline’s 
lute sounded more distinctly in their ears, and invol- 
untarily they hushed their steps upon the rich and 
odorous turf, as in a voice, though not powerful, mar- 
vellously sweet and clear, and well adapted to the 
simple fashion of the words and melody, she sang the 
following stanzas; — 


244 


RIENZr, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


LAY OF THE LADY OF PROVENCE. 

I. 

Ah, why art thou sad, my heart ? Why 
Darksome and lonely ? 

Frowns the face of the happy sky 
Over thee only ? 

Ah me, ah me ! 

Render to joy the earth ! 

Grief shuns, not envies. Mirth ; 

But leave one quiet spot. 

Where Mirth may enter not. 

To sigh. Ah me ! 

Ah me ! 


II. 

As a bird, though the sky be clear. 
Feels the storm lower. 

My soul bodes the tempest near 
In the sunny hour ; 

Ah me, ah me ! 
Be glad while yet we may ! 

I bid thee, my heart, be gay ; 
And still, I know not why, 
Thou answerest with a sigh, 
(Fond heart ! ) Ah me ! 

Ah me ! 

III. 

As this twilight o’er the skies, 

Doubt brings the sorrow ! 

Who knows when the daylight dies, 
What waits the morrow ? 

Ah me, ah me ! 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 245 


Be blithe, be blithe, my lute. 
Thy strings will soon be mute. 
Be blithe — hark ! while it dies, 
The note forewarning, sighs 
Its last — Ah me ! 

Ah me ! 


“My own Adeline, my sweetest night-bird,” half 
whispered Montreal, and, softly approaching, he threw 
himself at his lady’s feet, “ thy song is too sad for 
this golden eve.” 

“No sound ever went to the heart,” said Adrian, 
“ whose arrow was not feathered by sadness. True 
sentiment, Montreal, is twin with melancholy, though 
not with gloom.” 

The lady looked softly and approvingly up at Adrian’s 
face; she was pleased with its expression: she was 
pleased yet more with words of which women rather 
than men would acknowledge the truth. Adrian 
returned the look with one of deep and eloquent sym- 
pathy and respect; in fact, the short story he had heard 
from Montreal had interested him deeply in her; and 
never to the brilliant queen, to whose court he was 
bound, did his manner wear so chivalric and earnest 
a homage as it did to that lone and ill-fated lady on the 
twilight shores of Terracina. 

Adeline blushed slightly, and sighed; and then, to 
break the awkwardness of a pause which had stolen 
over them, as Montreal, unheeding the last remark of 
Adrian, was tuning the strings of the lute, she said, 
“ Of course the Signor di Gastello shares the universal 
enthusiasm for Petrarch ? ” 

“Ay,” cried Montreal; “my lady is Petrarch mad, 
like the rest of them : but all I know is, that never did 


246 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


belted knight and honest lover woo in such fantastic 
and tortured strains.” 

“In Italy,” answered Adrian, “ common language is 
exaggeration; but even your own Troubadour poetry 
might tell you that love, ever seeking a new language 
of its own, cannot but often run into what to all but 
lovers seems distortion and conceit.” 

“ Come, dear signor,” said Montreal, placing the lute 
in Adrian’s hands, “ let Adeline be the umpire between 
us, which music — yours or mine — can woo the more 
blandly.” 

“ Ah,” said Adrian, laughing, “ I fear me, sir knight, 
you have already bribed the umpire.” 

Montreal’s eyes and Adeline’s met; and in that gaze 
Adeline forgot all her sorrows. 

With a practised and skilful hand, Adrian touched 
the strings; and, selecting a song which was less 
elaborate than those mostly in vogue amongst his 
countrymen, though still conceived in the Italian 
spirit, and in accordance with the sentiment he had 
previously expressed to Adeline, he sang as follows: — 

LOVE’S EXCUSE FOR SADNESS. 

Chide not, beloved, if oft with thee 
I feel not rapture wholly ; 

For aye the heart that ’s filled with love 
Runs o’er in melancholy. » 

To streams that glide in noon, the shade 
From summer skies is given ; 

So, if my breast reflects the cloud, 

’T is but the cloud of heaven ! 

Thine image, glassed within my soul, 

So well the mirror keepeth. 

That, chide me not, if with the light 
The shadow also sleepeth. 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 247 


“ And now,” said Adrian, as he concluded, “ the lute 
is to you: I hut prelude your prize.” 

The Provencal laughed, and shook his head. “ With 
any other umpire, I had had my lute broken on my own 
head, for my conceit in provoking such a rival ; but I 
must not shrink from a contest I have myself provoked , 
even though in one day twice defeated.” And with 
that, in a deep and exquisitely melodious voice, which 
wanted only more scientific culture to have challenged 
any competition, the Knight of St John poured forth 


THE LAY OF THE TROUBADOUR. 


I. 

Gentle river, the moonbeam is hushed on thy tide, 

On thy pathway of light to my lady I glide. 

My boat, where the stream laves the castle, I moor, — 
All at rest save the maid and her young Troubadour ! 
As the stars to the waters that bore 
My bark, to my spirit thou art ; 

Heaving yet, see it bound to the shore. 

So moored to thy beauty my heart, 

BeV amie, heV amie^ leV amie I 


II. 

Wilt thou fly from the world ? It hath wealth for the vain ; 
But Love breaks his bond when there ’s gold in the chain ; 
Wilt thou fly from the world ? It hath courts for the proud ; 
But Love, born in caves, pines to death in the crowd. 

Were this bosom thy world, dearest one. 

Thy world could not fail to be bright ; 

For thou shouldst thyself be its sun, 

And what spot could be dim in thy light — 

Bel* am-ie, beV amie, heV amie ! 


248 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


III. 

The rich and the great woo thee, dearest ; and poor, 

Though his fathers were princes, thy young Troubadour : 

But his heart never quailed save to thee, his adored, — 

There ’s no guile in his lute, and no stain on his sword. 

Ah, I reck not what sorrows I know, 

Could I still on thy solace confide ; 

And I care not, though earth be my foe, 

If thy soft heart be found by my side, — 

^ BeV amie, beV amie, heV amie ! 

IV. 

The maiden she blushed, and the maiden she sighed. 

Not a cloud in the sky, not a gale on the tide. 

But though tempest had raged on the wave and the wind, 

That castle, methinks, had been still left behind ! 

Sweet lily, though bowed by the blast 
(To this bosom transplanted) since then, 

Wouldst thou change, could we call up the past. 

To the rock from thy garden again, — 

BeV amie, beV amie, beV amie ? ” 

Thus they alternated the time with converse and 
song, as the wooded hills threw their sharp, long 
shadows over the sea; while from many a mound of 
waking flowers, and many a copse of citron and orange, 
relieved by the dark and solemn aloe, stole the summer 
breeze, laden with mingled odors; and, over the seas, 
colored by the slow-fading hues of purple and rose, that 
the sun had long bequeathed to the twilight, flitted the 
gay fireflies that sparkle along that enchanted coast. 
At length the moon slowly rose above the dark forest- 
steeps, gleaming on the gay pavilion and glittering 
pennon of Montreal, — on the verdant sward, the pol- 
ished mail of the soldiers, stretched on the grass in 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 249 


various groups, half shaded by oaks and cypress, and 
the war-steeds grazing peaceably together : a wild mix- 
ture of the Pastoral and the Iron time. 

Adrian, reluctantly reminded of his journey, rose to 
depart. 

VI fear,” said he to Adeline, “that I have already 
detained you too late in the night air; hut selfishness 
is little considerate.” 

“ Nay, you see we are prudent,” said Adeline, point- 
ing to MontreaPs mantle, which his provident hand 
had long since drawn around her form ; “ hut if you 
must part, farewell, and success attend you! ” 

“ We may meet again, I trust,” said Adrian. 

Adeline sighed gently ; and the Colonna, gazing on 
her face by the moonlight, to which it was slightly 
raised, was painfully struck by its almost transparent 
delicacy. Moved by his compassion, ere he mounted 
his steed, he drew Montreal aside. “ Forgive me if I 
seem presumptuous,” said he; “ but to one so noble this 
wild life is scarce a fitting career. I know that, in our 
time. War consecrates all his children; but surely a 
settled rank in the court of the emperor, or an honor- 
able reconciliation with your knightly brethren, were 
better — ” 

“ Than a Tartar camp and a brigand’s castle,” inter- 
rupted Montreal, with some impatience. “ This you 
were about to say, — you are mistaken. Society thrust 
me from her bosom; let society take the fruit it hath 
sown. ‘A fixed rank,’ say you? some subaltern office, 
to fight at other men’s command! You know me not: 
Walter de Montreal was not formed to obey. War 
when I will, and rest when I list, is the motto of my 
escutcheon. Ambition proffers me rewards you wot not 
of; and I am of the mould as of the race of those whose 


250 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


swords have conquered thrones. For the rest, your 
news of the alliance of Louis of Hungary with your 
Tribune makes it necessary for the friend of Louis to 
withdraw from all feud with Kome. Ere the week 
expire, the owl and the bat may seek refuge in yon 
gray turrets.” 

“ But your lady ? ” 

“ Is inured to change. — God help her, and temper 
the rough wind to the lamb ! ” 

“Enough, sir knight; but should you desire a sure 
refuge at Kome for one so gentle and so high-born, by 
the right hand of a knight, I promise a safe roof and an 
honored home to the Lady Adeline. ” 

Montreal pressed the offered hand to his heart ; then 
plucking his own hastily away, drew it across his eyes, 
and joined Adeline, in a silence that showed he dared 
not trust himself to speak. In a few moments Adrian 
and his train were on the march; but still the young 
Colonna turned back, to gaze once more on his wild 
host and that lovely lady, as they themselves lingered 
on the moonlit sward, while the sea rippled mournfully 
on their ears. 

It was not many months after that date that the 
name of Fra Moreale scattered terror and dismay 
throughout the fair Campania. The right hand of 
the Hungarian king, in his invasion of Naples, he 
was chosen afterwards vicar (or vicegerent) of Louis in 
Aversa; and fame and fate seemed to lead him tri- 
umphantly along that ambitious career which he had 
elected, whether bounded by the scaffold or the throne. 


BOOK IV 


THE TRIUMPH AND THE POMP. 

Allora fama e paura di si buono reggimento passa in ogni terra. 
— Vita di Cola di Rienzi, lib. i. cap. 21. 

Then the fame and the fear of that so good government passed 
into every land. — Life of Cola di Rienzi. 


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BOOK IV. 


CHAPTEK I. 

The Boy Angelo. — The Dream of Nina fulfilled. 

The thread of my story transports us back to Eome. 
It was in a small chamber in a ruinous mansion by 
the base of Mount Aventine that a young boy sat, one 
evening, with a woman of a tall and stately form, but 
somewhat bowed both by infirmity and years. The boy 
was of a fair and comely presence ; and there was that 
in his bold, frank, undaunted carriage which made 
him appear older than he was. 

The old woman, seated in the recess of the deep 
window, was apparently occupied with a Bible that lay 
open on her knees; but ever and anon she lifted her 
eyes, and gazed on her young companion with a sad and 
anxious expression. 

“Dame,” said the boy, who was busily employed in 
hewing out a sword of wood, “ I would you had seen 
the show to-day. Why, every day is a show at Eome 
now ! It is show enough to see the Tribune himself on 
his white steed (oh, it is so beautiful!), — with his 
white robes all studded with jewels. But to-day, as I 
have just been telling you, the Lady Nina took notice 
of me, as I stood on the stairs of the Capitol: you 
know, dame, I had donned my best blue velvet doublet.” 

“ And she called you a fair boy, and asked if you 


254 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


would be her little page ; and this has turned thy brain, 
silly urchin that thou art — 

‘‘But the words are the least: if you saw the Lady 
Nina, you would own that a smile from her might turn 
the wisest head in Italy! Oh, how I should like to 
serve the Tribune ! All the lads of my age are mad for 
him. How they will stare, and envy me at school 
to-morrow! You know, too, dame, that though I was 
not always brought up at Borne, I am Boman. Every 
Boman loves Bienzi.” 

“Ay, for the hour: the cry will soon change. This 
vanity of thine, Angelo, vexes my old heart. I would 
thou wert humbler.” 

“Bastards have their own name to win,” said the 
boy, coloring deeply. “ They twit me in the teeth, 
because I cannot say who my father and mother 
were. ” 

“ They need not,” returned the dame, hastily. “ Thou 
comest of noble blood and long descent, though, as I 
have told thee often, I know not the exact names of thy 
parents. But what art thou shaping that tough sapling 
of oak into ? ” 

“ A sword, dame, to assist the Tribune against the 
robbers. ” 

“ Alas! I fear me, like all those who seek power in 
Italy, he is more likely to enlist robbers than to assail 
them.” 

“ Why, la you there, you live so shut up that you 
know and hear nothing, or you would have learned that 
even that fiercest of all the robbers. Fra Moreale, has at 
length yielded to the Tribune, and fled from his castle, 
like a rat from a falling house.” 

“ How, how! ” cried the dame; “ what say you? Has 
this plebeian, whom you call the Tribune j — has he 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 255 

boldly thrown the gage to that dread warrior, and has 
Montreal left the Roman territory ? ” 

“ Ay, it is the talk of the town. But Fra Moreale 
seems as much a bugbear to you as to e’er a mother in 
Rome. Did he ever wrong you, dame?” 

“Yes!” exclaimed the old woman, with so abrupt 
a fierceness that even that hardy boy was startled. 

“I wish I could meet him, then,” said he, after a 
pause, as he flourished his mimic weapon. 

“Now, Heaven forbid! He is a man ever to be 
shunned by thee, whether for peace or war. Say 
again this good Tribune holds no terms with the free 
lances. ” 

“ Say it again, — whj’’, all Rome knows it.” 

“ He is pious, too , I have heard ; and they do bruit 
it that he sees visions, and is comforted from above,” 
said the woman, speaking to herself. Then turning to 
Angelo, she continued, “ Thou wouldst like greatly to 
accept the Lady Nina’s proffer?” 

“ Ah, that I should, dame, if you could spare me.” 

“Child,” replied the matron, solemnly, “my sand is 
nearly run, and my wish is to see thee placed with one 
who will nurture thy young years, and save thee from 
a life of license. That done, I may fulfil my vow, and 
devote the desolate remnant of my years to God. I 
will think more of this, my child. Not under such a 
plebeian’s roof shouldst thou have lodged, nor from a 
stranger’s board been fed: but at Rome, my last relative 
worthy of the trust is dead; and at the worst, obscure 
honesty is better than gaudy crime. Thy spirit troubles 
me already. Back, my child; I must to my closet, and 
watch and pray.” 

Thus saying, the old woman, repelling the advance, 
and silencing the muttered and confused words, of the 


256 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


boy, — half affectionate as they were, yet half tetchy 
and wayward, — glided from the chamber. 

The boy looked abstractedly at the closing door, and 
then said to himself : “ The dame is always talking 
riddles: I wonder if she know more of me than she 
tells, or if she is any way akin to me. I hope not, for 
I don’t love her much; nor, for that matter, anything 
else. I wish she would place me with the Tribune’s 
lady, and then we ’ll see who among the lads will call 
Angelo Yillani bastard.” 

With that the boy fell to work again at his sword 
with redoubled vigor. In fact, the cold manner of this 
female , his sole nurse , companion , substitute for parent, 
had repelled his affections without subduing his temper; 
and though not originally of evil disposition, Angelo 
Villani was already insolent, cunning, and revengeful; 
but not, on the other hand, without a quick suscepti- 
bility to kindness as to affront, a natural acuteness of 
understanding , and a great indifference to fear. Brought 
up in quiet affluence rather than luxury, and living 
much with his protector, whom he knew but by the 
name of Ursula, his bearing was graceful, and his air 
that of the well-born. And it was his carriage, per- 
haps, rather than his countenance, which, though hand- 
some, was more distinguished for intelligence than 
beauty, which had attracted the notice of the Tri- 
bune’s bride. His education was that of one reared 
for some scholastic profession. He was not only taught 
to read and write, but had been even instructed in the 
rudiments of Latin. He did not, however, incline to 
these studies half so fondly as to the games of his 
companions, or the shows or riots in the street, into 
all of which he managed to thrust himself, and from 
which he had always the happy dexterity to return safe 
and unscathed. 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 257 


The next morning Ursula entered the young Angelo’s 
chamber. “Wear again thy blue doublet to-day,” said 
she ; “ I would have thee look thy best. Thou shalt 
go with me to the palace.” 

“What, to-day!” cried the hoy joyfully, half leaping 
from his bed. “ Dear Dame Ursula, shall I really then 
belong to the train of the great Tribune’s lady? ” 

“ Yes; and leave the old woman to die alone! Your 
joy becomes you, — but ingratitude is in your blood. 
Ingratitude! Oh, it has burned my heart into ashes; 
and yours, boy, can no longer find a fuel in the dry, 
crumbling cinders.” 

“Dear dame, you are always so biting. You know 
you said you wished to retire into a convent, and I was 
too troublesome a charge for you. But you delight in 
rebuking me, justly or unjustly.” 

“My task is over,” said Ursula, with a deep-drawn 
sigh. 

The boy answered not; and the old woman retired 
with a heavy step, and, it may be, a heavier heart. 
When he joined her in their common apartment, he 
observed what his joy had previously blinded him to, — 
that Ursula did not wear her usual plain and sober 
dress. The gold chain, rarely assumed then by women 
not of noble birth, — though, in the other sex, affected 
also by public functionaries and wealthy merchants, — 
glittered upon a robe of the rich flowered stuffs of 
Venice, and the clasps that confined the vest at the throat 
and waist were adorned with jewels of no common price. 

Angelo’s eye was struck by the change, but he felt a 
more manly pride in remarking that the old lady became 
it well. Her air and mien were indeed those of one to 
whom such garments were habitual ; and they seemed 
that day more than usually austere and stately. 

VOL. I. — 17 


258 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


She smoothed the hoy’s ringlets, drew his short 
mantle more gracefully over his shoulder, and then 
placed in his belt a poniard Avhose handle was richly 
studded, and a purse well filled with florins. 

“Learn to use both discreetly,” said she; “and, 
whether I live or die, you will never require to wield 
the poniard to procure the gold.” 

“This, then,” cried Angelo, enchanted, “is a real 
poniard to fight the robbers with! Ah, with this I 
should not fear Fra Moreale, who wronged thee so. I 
trust I may yet avenge thee, though thou didst rate me 
so just now for ingratitude. ” 

“ I am avenged. Nourish not such thoughts, my son, 
— they are sinful ; at least, I fear so. Draw to the 
hoard and eat; we will go betimes, as petitioners 
should do.” 

Angelo had soon finished his morning meal, and, 
sallying with Ursula to the porch, he saw, to his sur- 
prise, four of those servitors who then usually attended 
persons of distinction, and who were to he hired in 
every city, for the convenience of strangers or the 
holiday ostentation of the gayer citizens. 

“How grand we are to-day!” said he, clapping his 
hands with an eagerness which Ursula failed not to 
reprove. 

“It is not for vain show,” she added, “which true 
nobility can well dispense with, but that we may the 
more readily gain admittance to the palace. These 
princes of yesterday are not easy of audience to the 
over-humble. ” 

“ Oh, hut you are wrong this time! ” said the boy. 
“The Tribune gives audience to all men, the poorest as 
the richest. Nay, there is not a ragged boor or a bare' 
footed friar who does not win access to him sooner than 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 259 


the proudest baron. That ’s why the people love him 
so. And he devotes one day of the week to receiving 
the widows and the orphans; and you know, dame, 
I am an orphan.” 

Ursula, already occupied with her own thoughts, did 
not answer, and scarcely heard the hoy; but, leaning on 
his young arm, and preceded by the footmen to clear the 
way, passed slowly towards the palace of the Capitol. 

A wonderful thing would it have been to a more 
observant eye, to note the change which two or three 
short months of the stern but salutary and wise rule of 
the Tribune had effected in the streets of Rome. You 
no longer beheld the gaunt and mail-clad forms of 
foreign mercenaries stalking through the vistas, or 
grouped in lazy insolence before the embattled porches 
of some gloomy palace. The shops that in many quar- 
ters had been closed for years were again open, glit- 
tering with wares and bustling with trade. The 
thoroughfares, formerly either silent as death, or crossed 
by some affrighted and solitary passenger with quick 
steps, and eyes that searched every corner, — or resound- 
ing with the roar of a pauper rabble, or the open feuds 
of savage nobles, now exhibited the regular and whole- 
some and mingled streams of civilized life, whether 
bound to pleasure or to commerce. Carts and wagons, 
laden with goods which had passed in safety by the 
dismantled holds of the robbers of the Campagna, rattled 
cheerfully over the pathways. “ Never, perhaps,” — to 
use the translation adapted from the Italian authorities 
by a modern and by no means a partial historian,^ — 
“never, perhaps, has the energy and effect of a single 
mind been more remarkably felt than in the sudden 
reformation of Rome by the Tribune Rienzi. A den 
1 Gibbon. 


260 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


of robbers was converted to the discipline of a camp or 
convent. ‘In this time/ says the historian/ ‘did the 
woods begin to rejoice that they were no longer infested 
with robbers : the oxen began to plough ; the pilgrims 
visited the sanctuaries ; ^ the roads and inns were replen- 
ished with travellers; trade, plenty, and good faith were 
restored in the markets ; and a purse of gold might be 
exposed without danger in the midst of the highways.’ ” 

Amidst all these evidences of comfort and security to 
the people, some dark and discontented countenances 
might be seen mingled in the crowd ; and whei^ever one 
who wore the livery of the Colonna or the Orsini felt 
himself jostled by the throng, a fierce hand moved 
' involuntarily to the sword-belt, and a half-suppressed 
oath was ended with an indignant sigh. Here and 
there, too, — contrasting the redecorated, refurnished, 
and smiling shops, — heaps of rubbish before the gate 
of some haughty mansion testified the abasement of 
fortifications which the owner impotently resented as a 
sacrilege. Through such streets and such throngs did 
the party we accompany wend their way, till they found 
themselves amidst crowds assembled before the entrance 
of the Capitol. The officers there stationed kept, how- 
ever, so discreet and dexterous an order, that they were 
not long detained ; and now in the broad place or court 
of that memorable building they saw the open doors of 
the great justice-hall, guarded but by a single sentinel, 
and in which, for six hours daily, did the Tribune hold 
his court; for, “patient to hear, swift to redress, inex- 
orable to punish, his tribunal was always accessible to 
the poor and stranger. ” ® 

2 Gibbon : the words in the original are, “ Li pellegrini cominci- 
aro a fare la cerca per la santuaria.” 

3 Gibbon. 

1 Vita di Cola di Rienzi, lib, i, c. 9. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 261 


Not, however, to that hall did the party bend its 
way, hut to the entrance which admitted to the private 
apartments of the palace; and here the pomp, the 
gaud, the more than regal magnificence, of the residence 
of the Tribune strongly contrasted the patriarchal sim- 
plicity which marked his justice court. 

Even Ursula, not unaccustomed of yore to the 
luxurious state of Italian and French principalities, 
seemed roused into surprise at the hall crowded with 
retainers in costly liveries, the marble and gilded 
columns wreathed with flowers, and the gorgeous ban- 
ners wrought with the blended arms of the Kepublican 
City and the Pontifical See, which blazed aloft and 
around. 

Scarce knowing whom to address in such an assem- 
blage, Ursula was relieved from her perplexity by an 
officer attired in a suit of crimson and gold, who, with 
a grave and ^formal decorum, which indeed reigned 
throughout the whole retinue, demanded, respectfully, 
whom she sought. “The Signora Nina!” replied 
Ursula, drawing up her stately person with a natural 
though somewhat antiquated dignity. There was 
something foreign in the accent which influenced the 
officer’s answer. 

“To-day, madam, I fear that the signora receives 
only the Roman ladies. To-morrow is that appointed 
for all foreign dames of distinction.” 

Ursula, with a slight impatience of tone, replied, — 

“ My business is of that nature which is welcome on 
any day at palaces. I come, signor, to lay certain 
presents at the signora’s feet, which I trust she will 
deign to accept.” 

“And say, signor,” added the boy, abruptly ,“ that 
Angelo Villani , whom the Lady Nina honored yester- 


262 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


day with her notice, is no stranger, but a Eoman ; and 
comes, as she bade him, to proffer to the signora his 
homage and devotion.” 

The grave officer could not refrain a smile at the pert 
yet not ungraceful boldness of the boy. 

“I remember me. Master Angelo Villani, ” he replied, 
“ that the Lady Nina spoke to you by the great stair- 
case. Madam, I will do your errand. Please to follow 
me to an apartment more fitting your sex and seeming. ” 

With that the officer led the way across the hall to a 
broad staircase of white marble, along the centre of 
which were laid those rich Eastern carpets which at 
that day, when rushes strewed the chambers of an 
English monarch, were already common to the greater 
luxury of Italian palaces. Opening a door at the first 
flight, he ushered Ursula and her young charge into 
a lofty antechamber, hung with arras of wrought vel- 
vets; while over the opposite door, through which the 
officer now vanished, were blazoned the armorial bear- 
ings which the Tribune so constantly introduced in all 
his pomp, not more from the love of show than from 
his politic desire to mingle with the keys of the Pontiff 
the heraldic insignia of the Eepublic. 

“Philip of Valois is not housed like this man!” 
muttered Ursula. “ If this last, I shall have done 
better for my charge than I recked of.” 

The officer soon returned, and led them across an 
apartment of vast extent, which was indeed the great 
reception-chamber of the palace. Four-and-twenty 
columns of the oriental alabaster which had attested 
the spoils of the later emperors, and had been disin- 
terred from forgotten ruins, to grace the palace of the 
Eeviver of the old Eepublic, supported the light roof, 
which, half Gothic, half classic, in its architecture, was 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 263 


inlaid with gilded and purple mosaics. The tessellated 
floor was covered in the centre with cloth-of*gold; the 
walls were clothed, at intervals, with the same gorgeous 
hangings, relieved by panels freshly painted in the most 
glowing colors, with mystic and symbolical designs. 
At the upper end of this royal chamber, two steps 
ascended to the place of the Tribune’s throne, above 
which was the canopy wrought with the eternal armorial 
bearings of the pontiff and the city. 

Traversing this apartment, the officer opened the door 
at its extremity, which admitted to a small chamber, 
crowded with pages in rich dresses of silver and blue 
velvet. There were few amongst them elder than 
Angelo; and, from their general beauty, they seemed 
the very flower and blossom of the city. 

Short time had Angelo to gaze on his comrades that 
were to be: another minute, and he and his protec- 
tress were in the presence of the Tribune’s bride. 

The chamber was not large ; but it was large enough 
to prove that the beautiful daughter of Kaselli had 
realized her visions of vanity and splendor. 

It was an apartment that mocked description, — it 
seemed a cabinet for the gems of the world. The day- 
light, shaded by high and deep-set casements of stained 
glass, streamed in a purple and mellow hue over all 
that the art of that day boasted most precious, or regal 
luxury held most dear. The candelabras of the silver 
workmanship of Florence ; the carpets and stuff’s of the 
East; the draperies of Venice and Genoa; paintings 
like the illuminated missals, wrought in gold, and 
those lost colors of blue and crimson ; antique marbles, 
which spoke of the bright days of Athens; tables of 
disinterred mosaics, their freshness preserved as by 
magic; censers of gold that steamed with the odors of 


264 KIENZI, THE LAST’ OF THE TRIBUNES. 


Araby, yet so subdued as not to deaden the healthier 
scent of flowers, which blushed in every corner from 
their marble and alabaster vases; a small and spirit-like 
fountain, which seemed to gush from among wreaths of 
roses, diffusing in its diamond and fairy spray a scarce 
felt coolness to the air, — all these, and such as these, 
which it were vain work to detail, congregated in the 
richest luxuriance, harmonized with the most exquisite 
taste, uniting the ancient arts with the modern, amazed 
and intoxicated the sense of the beholder. It was not 
so much the cost nor the luxury that made the character 
of the chamber; it was a certain gorgeous and almost 
sublime fantasy, ■ — ■ so that it seemed rather the fabled 
retreat of an enchantress, at whose word genii ransacked 
the earth, and fairies arranged the produce, than the 
grosser splendor of an earthly queen. Behind the piled 
cushions upon which Nina half reclined, stood four 
girls, beautiful as nymphs, with fans of the rarest 
feathers; and at her feet lay one older than the rest, 
whose lute, though now silent, attested her legitimate 
occupation. 

But, had the room in itself seemed somewhat too 
fantastic and overcharged in its prodigal ornaments, the 
form and face of Nina would at once have rendered all 
appropriate: so completely did she seem the natural 
spirit of the place; so wonderfully did her beauty, 
elated as it now was with contented love, gratified 
vanity, exultant hope, body forth the brightest vision 
that ever floated before the eyes of Tasso, when he 
wrought into one immortal shape the glory of the 
enchantress with the allurements of the woman. 

Nina half rose as she saw Ursula, whose sedate and 
mournful features involuntarily testified her surprise 
and admiration at a loveliness so rare and striking, but 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 265 


who, Tindazzled by the splendor around, soon recovered 
her wonted self-composure, and seated herself on the 
cushion to which Nina pointed, while the young visitor 
remained standing, and spellbound by childish wonder, 
in the centre of the apartment. Nina recognized him 
with a smile. 

" Ah, my pretty hoy, whose quick eye and hold air 
caught my fancy yesterday ! Have you come to accept 
my offer? Is it you, madam, who claim this fair 
child?” 

“Lady,” replied Ursula, “my business here is brief: 
by a train of events, needless to weary you with narrat- 
ing, this boy from his infancy fell to my charge, — a 
weighty and anxious trust to one whose thoughts are 
beyond the harrier of life. I have reared him as became 
a youth of gentle blood; for on both sides, lady, he is 
noble, though an orphan, motherless and sireless. ” 

“Poor child!” said Nina, compassionately. 

“Growing now,” continued Ursula, “oppressed by 
years, and desirous only to make my peace with Heaven, 
I journeyed hither some months since, in the design to 
place the boy with a relation of mine, and, that trust 
fulfilled, to take the vows in the city of the Apostle. 
Alas! I found my kinsman dead, and a baron of wild 
and dissolute character was his heir. Here remaining, 
perplexed and anxious, it seemed to me the voice of 
Providence when, yester-evening, the child told me 
you had been pleased to honor him with your notice. 
Like the rest of Pome, he has already learned enthu- 
siasm for the Tribune, — devotion to the Tribune’s 
bride. Will you, in truth, admit him of your house- 
hold? He will not dishonor your protection by his 
blood, nor, I trust, by his bearing.” 

“ I would take his face for his guarantee, madam, 


266 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


even without so distinguished a recommendation as 
your own. Is he K.oman? His name then must be 
known to me.” 

“Pardon me, lady,” replied Ursula: “he bears the 
name of Angelo Villani, — not that of his sire or mother. 
The honor of a noble house forever condemns his parent- 
age to rest unknown. He is the offspring of a love 
unsanctioned by the Church.” 

“ He is the more to be loved, then, and to be pitied, 
— victim of sin not his own ! ” answered Nina, with 
moistened eyes, as she saw the deep and burning blush 
that covered the boy’s cheeks. “ With the Tribune’s 
reign commences a new era of nobility, when rank and 
knighthood shall be won by a man’s own merit, not 
that of his ancestors. Fear not, madam j in my house 
he shall know no slight.” 

Ursula was moved from her pride by the kindness of 
Nina; she approached with involuntary reverence, and 
kissed the signora’s hand. 

“ May Our Lady reward your noble heart,” said she; 
“ and now my mission is ended, and my earthly goal is 
won. Add only, lady, to your inestimable favors one 
more. These jewels” — and Ursula drew from her 
robe a casket, touched the spring, and, the lid flying 
back, discovered jewels of great size and the most bril- 
liant water, — “ these jewels,” she continued, laying the 
casket at Nina’s feet, “ once belonging to the princely 
house of Thoulouse, are valueless to me and mine. 
Suffer me to think that they are transferred to one whose 
queenly brow will give them a lustre it cannot borrow.” 

“How!” said Nina, coloring very deeply; “think 
you, madam, my kindness can be bought? What 
woman’s kindness ever was? Nay, nay, — take back 
the gifts, or I shall pray you to take back your boy. ” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 267 


Ursula was astonished and confounded; to her expe- 
rience such abstinence was a novelty, and she scarcely 
knew how to meet it. Nina perceived her embarrass- 
ment with a haughty and triumphant smile, and then, 
regaining her former courtesy of demeanor, said, with 
a grave sweetness, — 

“ The Tribune^s hands are clean, the Tribune’s wife 
must not be suspected. Kather, madam, should I press 
upon you some token of exchange for the fair charge 
you have committed to me. Your jewels hereafter may 
profit the boy in his career ; reserve them for one who 
needs them.” 

“No, lady,” said Ursula, rising and lifting her eyes 
to heaven: “they shall buy masses for his mother’s 
soul; for him I shall reserve a competence when his 
years require it. Lady, accept the thanks of a wretched 
and desolate heart. Fare you well ! ” 

She turned to quit the room, but with so faltering 
and weak a step that Nina, touched and affected, sprang 
up, and with her own hand guided the old woman across 
the room, whispering comfort and soothing to her; 
while, as they reached the door, the boy rushed for- 
ward, and, clasping Ursula’s robe, sobbed out: “Dear 
dame, not one farewell for your little Angelo! Forgive 
him all he has cost you! Now, for the first time, I feel 
how wayward and thankless I have been.” 

The old woman caught him in her arms, and kissed 
him passionately; when the boy, as if a thought sud- 
denly struck him, drew forth the purse she had given 
him, and said, in a choked and scarce articulate voice, 
“ And let this, dearest dame, go in masses for my poor 
father's soul; for he is dead, too, you know!” 

These words seemed to freeze at once all the tenderer 
emotions of Ursula. She put back the boy with the 


268 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


same chilling and stern severity of aspect and mannei 
which had so often before repressed him: and, recov- 
ering her self-possession, at once quitted the apartment 
without saying another word. Nina, surprised, hut 
still pitying her sorrow and respecting her age, followed 
her steps across the pages’ anteroom and the reception- 
chamber, even to the foot of the stairs, — a condescen- 
sion the haughtiest princess of E-ome could not have 
won from her; and, returning saddened and thoughtful, 
she took the boy’s hand, and affectionately kissed his 
forehead. 

“ Poor hoy ! ” she said , “ it seems as if Providence 
had made me select thee yesterday from the crowd, and 
thus conducted thee to thy proper refuge. For to whom 
should come the friendless and the orphans of Rome, 
hut to the palace of Rome’s first magistrate '? ” Turning 
then to her attendants, she gave them instructions as to 
the personal comforts of her new charge, which evinced 
that if power had ministered to her vanity it had not 
steeled her heart. Angelo Villani lived to repay her 
well ! 

She retained the boy in her presence, and, conversing 
with him familiarly, she was more and more pleased 
with his bold spirit and frank manner. Their con- 
versation was, however, interrupted , as the day advanced, 
by the arrival of several ladies of the Roman nobility. 
And then it was that Nina’s virtues receded into shade, 
and her faults appeared. She could not resist the 
woman’s triumph over those arrogant signoras who now 
cringed in homage where they had once slighted with 
disdain. She affected the manner of, she demanded the 
respect due to, a queen. And by many of those dex- 
terous arts which the sex know so well, she contrived 
to render her very courtesy a humiliation to her haughty 


RIENZI. THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 269 

guests. Her commanding beauty and her graceful intel- 
lect saved her, indeed, from the vulgar insolence of the 
upstart; but yet more keenly stung the pride, by for- 
bidding to those she mortified the retaliation of con- 
tempt. Hers were the covert taunt, the smiling affront, 
the sarcasm in the mask of compliment, the careless 
exaction of respect in trifies, — which could not out- 
wardly be resented, but which could not inly be 
forgiven. 

“ Fair day to the Signora Colonna,” said she to the 
proud wife of the proud Stephen ; “ we passed your 
palace yesterday. How fair it now seems, relieved 
from those gloomy battlements which it must often 
have saddened you to gaze upon. Signora,” turning to 
one of the Orsini, “your lord has high favor with the 
Tribune, who destines him to great command. His 
fortunes are secured, and we rejoice at it; for no man 
more loyally serves the state. Have you seen, fair 
lady of Frangipani, the last verses of Petrarch in honor 
of my lord ? — they rest yonder. May we so far venture 
as to request you to point out their beauties to the 
Signora di Savelli ? We rejoice, noble Lady of Mala- 
testa, to observe that your eyesight is so well restored. 
The last time we met, though we stood next to you in 
the revels of the Lady Giulia, you seemed scarce to 
distinguish us from the pillar by which we stood!” 

“ Must this insolence be endured ? ” whispered the 
Signora Frangipani to the Signora Malatesta. 

“ Hush, hush! if ever it be our day again! ” 


270 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTER IL 

The Blessing of a Councillor whose Interests and Heart are our 
own. — The Straws thrown upward, — do they portend a Storm ? 

It was later that day than usual when Rienzi returned 
from his tribunal to the apartments of the palace. As 
he traversed the reception-hall, his countenance was 
much flushed; his teeth were set firmly, like a man 
who has taken a strong resolution from which he will 
not be moved ; and his brow was dark with that settled 
and fearful frown which the describers of his personal 
appearance have not failed to notice as the characteristic 
of an anger the more deadly because invariably just. 
Close at his heels followed the Bishop of Orvi'etto and 
the aged Stephen Colonna. “ I tell you, my lords,” 
said Rienzi, " that ye plead in vain. Rome knows no 
distinction between ranks. The law is blind to the 
agent, lynx-eyed to the deed.” 

“Yet,” said Raimond, hesitatingly, “bethink thee. 
Tribune; the nephew of two cardinals, and himself 
once a senator. ” 

Rienzi halted abruptly, and faced his companions. 
“ My Lord Bishop,” said he, “does not this make the 
crime more inexcusable? Look you, thus it reads; 
A vessel from Avignon to Naples, charged with the 
revenues of Provence to Queen Joanna, on whose cause, 
mark you, we now hold solemn council, is wrecked at 
the mouth of the Tiber; with that, Martino di Porto 
— a noble, as you say, the holder of that fortress whence 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 271 


he derives his title, doubly bound by gentle blood and 
by immediate neighborhood to succor the oppressed — 
falls upon the vessel with his troops (what hath the 
rebel with armed troops?), and pillages the vessel like 
a common robber. He is apprehended, brought to my 
tribunal, receives fair trial, is condemned to die. 
Such is the law ; what more would ye have ? ” 

‘‘Mercy,” said the Colonna. 

Hienzi folded his arms, and laughed disdainfully. 
“ I never heard my Lord Colonna plead for mercy 
when a peasant had stolen the bread that was to feed 
his famishing children.” 

"Between a peasant and a prince. Tribune, /, for 
one, recognize a distinction: the bright blood of an 
Orsini is not to be shed like that of a base plebeian — ” 

“ Which 1 remember me,” said Eienzi, in a low voice, 
“ you deemed small matter enough when my boy-brother 
fell beneath the wanton spear of your proud son. Wake 
not that memory, I warn you: let it sleep. For shame, 
old Colonna, for shame; so near the grave, where the 
worm levels all flesh, and preaching with those gray 
hairs the uncharitable distinction between man and 
man! Is there not distinction enough at the best? 
Does not one wear purple, and the other rags? Hath 
not one ease, and the other toil? Doth not the one 
banquet while the other starves? Do I nourish any 
mad scheme to level the ranks which society renders 
a necessary evil ? No. I war no more with Dives 
than with Lazarus. But before man’s judgment-seat, 
as before God's, Lazarus and Dives are made equal. 
No more.” 

Colonna drew his robe round him with great haughti- 
^ ness, and bit his lip in silence. Raimond interposed. 

“All this is true. Tribune. But,” and he drew 


I 


272 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

Eienzi aside, “ you know we must be politic as well as 
just. Nephew to two cardinals, what enmity will not 
this provoke at Avignon ? ” 

“ Vex not yourself, holy Eaimond; I will answer it 
to the pontiff.” While they spoke, the bell tolled 
heavily and loudly. 

Colonna started. 

“ Great Tribune said he , with a slight sneer, “ deign 
to pause ere it be too late. I know not that I ever 
before bent to you a suppliant; and I ask you now to 
spare mine own foe. Stephen Colonna prays Cola di 
Eienzi to spare the life of an Orsini.” 

“I understand thy taunt, old lord,” said Eienzi, 
calmly, “ but I resent it not. You are foe to the Orsini, 
yet you plead for him, — it sounds generous; but hark 
you, — you are more a friend to your order than a foe to 
your rival. You cannot bear that one great enough to 
have contended with you should perish like a thief. 
I give full praise to such noble forgiveness ; but I am 
no noble, and I do not sympathize with it. One word 
more: if this were the sole act of fraud and violence 
that this bandit baron had committed, your prayers 
should plead for him; but is not his life notorious? 
Has he not been from boyhood the terror and disgrace 
of Eome? How many matrons violated, merchants 
pillaged, peaceful men stilettoed in the daylight, rise 
in dark witness against the prisoner? And for such 
a man do I live to hear an aged prince and a pope’s 
vicar plead for mercy? Fie, fie! But I will be even 
with ye. The next 'poor man whom the law sentences 
to death, for your sake will I pardon.” 

Eaiihond again drew aside the Tribune, while 
Colonna struggled to suppress his rage. 

" My friend,” said the bishop, “the nobles will feel 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 273 

this as an insult to their whole order; the very plead- 
ing of Orsini’s worst foe must convince thee of this. 
Martino’s blood will seal their reconciliation with each 
other, and they will be as one man against thee.” 

“Be it so: with God and the people on my side, I 
will dare, though a Eoman, to be just. The bell ceases, 
— you are already too late.” So saying, Kienzi threw 
open the casement ; and by the staircase of the “ Lion ” 
rose a gibbet, from which swung with a creaking sound, 
arrayed in his patrician robes, the yet palpitating corpse 
of Martino di Porto. 

“Behold!” said the Tribune, sternly, “thus die all 
robbers. For traitors, the same law has the axe and 
the scaffold ! ” 

Baimond drew back and turned pale. Not so the 
veteran noble. Tears of wounded pride started from 
his eyes; he approached, leaning on his staff, to Bienzi, 
touched him on his shoulder, and said, — 

“ Tribune, a judge has lived to envy his victim! ” 

V Bienzi turned with an equal pride to the baron. 

“We forgive idle words in the aged. My lord, have 
you done with us ? — we would be alone.” 

“ Give me thy arm, Baimond,” said Stephen. “ Tri- 
bune, farewell. Forget that the Colonna sued thee, — 
an easy task, methinks; for, wise as you are, you forget 
what every one else can remember. ” 

“ Ay, my lord, what? ” 

“ Birth, Tribune, birth, — that ’s all! ” 

“ The Signor Colonna has taken up my old calling, 
and turned a wit,” returned Bienzi, with an indifferent 
and easy tone. 

Then following Baimond and Stephen with his eyes 
till the door closed upon them, he muttered: “ Insolent! 
were it not for Adrian, thy gray beard should not heal 

VOL. I. — 18 


274 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES, 


thee harmless. Birth ! what Colonna would not boast 
himself, if he could, the grandson of an emperor? Old 
man, there is danger in thee which must he watched.” 
With that he turned musingly towards the casement, 
and again that grisly spectacle of death met his^ eye. 
The people below, assembled in large concourse, rejoiced 
at the execution of one whose whole life had been 
infamy and rapine, but who had seemed beyond jus- 
tice, with all the fierce clamor that marks the exulta- 
tion of the rabble over a crushed foe. And where 
Rienzi stood, he heard the shouts of “ Long live the 
Tribune, the just judge, Rome’s liberator!” But at 
that time other thoughts deafened his senses to the 
popular enthusiasm. 

“ My poor brother! ” he said, with tears in his eyes; 
“ it was owing to this man’s crimes — and to a crime 
almost similar to that for which he has now suffered 
— that thou wert entrained to the slaughter ; and they 
who had no pity for the lamb clamor for compassion 
to the wolf! Ah, wert thou living now, how these 
proud heads would bend to thee; though dead, thou 
wert not worthy of a thought. God rest thy gentle 
soul, and keep my ambition pure as it was when we 
walked at twilight, side by side together!” 

The Tribune shut the casement, and turning away 
sought the chamber of Nina. On hearing his step 
without, she had already risen from the couch, her 
eyes sparkling, her bosom heaving; and as he entered, 
she threw herself on his neck, and murmured as she 
nestled to his breast, “ Ah, the hours since we parted! ” 

It was a singular thing to see that proud lady, — proud 
of her beauty, her station, her new honors; whose gor- 
geous vanity was already the talk of Rome, and the 
reproach to Rienzi , — how suddenly and miraculous\y 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 275 


she seemed changed in his presence. Blushing and 
timid, all pride in herself seemed merged in her proud 
love for him. No woman ever loved to the full extent 
of the passion who did not venerate where she loved, 
and who did not feel humbled (delighted in that hu- 
mility) by her exaggerated and overweening estimate 
of the superiority of the object of her worship. 

And it might be the consciousness of this distinction 
between himself and all other created things which 
continued to increase the love of the Tribune to his 
bride, to blind him to her failings towards others, and 
to indulge her in a magnificence of parade which, 
though to a certain point politic to assume, was carried 
to an extent which, if it did not conspire to produce his 
downfall, has served the Bomans with an excuse for 
their own cowardice and desertion, and historians with 
a plausible explanation of causes they had not the 
industry to fathom. Rienzi returned his wife’s caresses 
with an equal affection, and bending down to her beau- 
tiful face, the sight was sufficient to chase from his 
brow the emotions, whether severe or sad, which had 
lately darkened its broad expanse. 

“ Thou hast not been abroad this morning, Nina! ” 

“No; the heat was oppressive. But nevertheless. 
Cola, I have not lacked company, — half the matronage 
of Rome has crowded the palace.” 

“ Ah, I warrant it. — But yon boy, is he not a new 
face?” 

“ Hush, Cola, speak to him kindly, I entreat; of his 
story anon. Angelo, approach. You see your new 
master, the Tribune of Rome.” 

Angelo approached with a timidity not his wont; for 
an air of majesty was at all times natural to Rienzi, and 
since his power it had naturally taken a graver and 


276 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


austerer aspect, which impressed those who approached 
him, even the ambassadors of princes, with a certain 
involuntary awe. The Tribune smiled at the effect he 
saw he had produced, and, being by temper fond of 
children and affable to all but the great, he hastened to 
dispel it. He took the child affectionately in his arms, 
kissed him, and bade him welcome. 

“ May we have a son as fair! ” he whispered to Nina, 
who blushed, and turned away. 

“ Thy name, my little friend? ” 

“ Angelo Villani.” 

“ A Tuscan name. There is a man of letters at 
Florence, doubtless writing our annals from hearsay 
at this moment, called Villani. Perhaps akin to 
thee?” 

“ I have no kin,” said the boy, bluntly; “ and there- 
fore I shall the better love the signora and honor you, 
if you will let me. I am Roman, — all the Roman 
boys honor Rienzi.” 

“ Do they, my brave lad? ” said the Tribune, color- 
ing with pleasure ; “ that is a good omen of my con- 
tinued prosperity.” He put down the boy, and threw 
himself on the cushions, while Nina placed herself on 
a kind of low stool beside him. 

“Let us be alone,” said he; and Nina motioned to 
the attendant maidens to withdraw. 

“ Take my new page with you,” said she; “ he is yet, 
perhaps, too fresh from home to enjoy the company of 
his giddy brethren. ” 

When they were alone, Nina proceeded to relate to 
Rienzi the adventure of the morning; but though he 
seemed outwardly to listen, his gaze was on vacancy, 
and he was evidently abstracted and self-absorbed. At 
length, as she concluded, he said: “Well, Nina, you 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 277 


have acted as ever, kindly and nobly. Let us to other 
themes. I am in danger.” 

“Danger! ” echoed Nina, turning pale. 

“Why, the word must not appall you, — you have a 
spirit like mine, that scorns fear; and for that reason, 
Nina, in all Nome you are my only confidant. It was 
not only to glad me with thy beauty, but to cheer me 
with thy counsel, to support me with thy valor, that 
Heaven gave me thee as a helpmate.” 

“Now, Our Lady bless thee for those words!” said 
Nina, kissing the hand that hung over her shoulder; 
“ and if I started at the word ‘ danger,’ it was but the 
woman’s thought of thee, — an unworthy thought, my 
Cola, for glory and danger go together. And I am as 
ready to share the last as the first. If the hour of trial 
ever come, none of thy friends shall be so faithful to thy 
side as this weak form but undaunted heart.” 

“ I know it, my own Nina; I know it,” said Rienzi, 
rising, and pacing the chamber with large and rapid 
strides. “ Now listen to me. Thou knowest that to 
govern in safety, it is my policy as my pride to govern 
justly. To govern justly is an awful thing, when 
mighty barons are the culprits. Nina, for an open and 
audacious robbery our court has sentenced Martin of 
the Orsini, the Lord of Porto, to death. His corpse 
swings now on the Staircase of the Lion.” 

“ A dreadful doom! ” said Nina, shuddering. 

“ True ; but by his death thousands of poor and honest 
men may live in peace. It is not that which troubles 
me: the barons resent the deed, as an insult to them 
that law should touch a noble. They will rise, — they 
will rebel. I foresee the storm, — not the spell to 
allay it.” 

Nina paused a moment. “ They have taken,” she then 


278 RIENZr, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


said, “ a solemn oath on the Eucharist not to bear arms 
against thee.” 

"Perjury is a light addition to theft and murder,” 
answered Kienzi, with his sarcastic smile. 

" But the people are faithful.” 

“ Yes ; but in a civil war (which the saints forefend !) 
those combatants are the stanchest who have no home 
but their armor, no calling but the sword. The trader 
will not leave his trade at the toll of a bell every day ; 
but the barons^ soldiery are ready at all hours. ” 

“To be strong,” said Nina, who, summoned to the 
councils of her lord, showed an intellect not unworthy 
of the honor, — “to be strong in dangerous times, 
authority must seem strong. By showing no fear, you 
may prevent the cause of fear. ” 

“My own thought!” returned Kienzi, quickly. 
“ You know that half my power with these barons is 
drawn from the homage rendered to me by foreign 
states. When from every city in Italy the ambassadors 
of crowned princes seek the alliance of the Tribune, 
they must veil their resentment at the rise of the ple- 
beian. On the other hand, to be strong abroad I must 
seem strong at home: the vast design I have planned, 
and, as by a miracle, begun to execute, will fail at once 
if it seem abroad to be intrusted to an unsteady and 
fluctuating power. That design,” continued Kienzi, 
pausing, and placing his hand on a marble bust of the 
young Augustus, “ is greater than his, whose profound 
yet icy soul united Italy in subjection, — for it would 
unite Italy in freedom; — yes! could we but form one 
great federative league of all the States of Italy, each 
governed by its own laws, but united for mutual and 
common protection against the Attilas of the North, 
with Kome for their Metropolis and their Mother, this 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 279 


age and this brain would have wrought an enterprise 
which men should quote till the sound of the last 
trump! ” 

“ I know thy divine scheme,” said Nina, catching his 
enthusiasm ; “ and what if there be danger in attaining 
it? Have we not mastered the greatest danger in the 
first step? ” 

“ Right, Nina, right! Heaven” — and the Tribune, 
who ever recognized in his own fortunes the agency 
of the hand above, crossed himself reverently — “ will 
preserve him to whom it hath vouchsafed such lofty 
visions of the future redemption of the Land of the true 
Church, and the liberty and advancement of its chil- 
dren! This I trust: already many of the cities of 
Tuscany have entered into treaties for the formation 
of this league; nor from a single tyrant, save John di 
Vico, have I received aught but fair words and flatter- 
ing promises. The time seems ripe for the grand stroke 
of all.” 

“ And what is that ? ” demanded Nina, wonderingly. 

“ Defiance to all foreign interference. By what right 
does a synod of stranger princes give Rome a king in 
some Teuton emperor? Rome’s people alone should 
qhoose Rome’s governor, — and shall we cross the Alps 
to render the title of our master to the descendants of 
the Goth?” 

Nina was silent: the custom of choosing the sovereign 
by a diet beyond the Rhine, reserving only the cere- 
mony of his subsequent coronation for the mock assent of 
the Romans, however degrading to that people, and how- 
ever hostile to all notions of substantial independence, 
was so unquestioned at that time that Rienzi’s daring 
suggestion left her amazed and breathless, prepared as 
she was for any scheme , however extravagantly bold. 


280 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ How! ” said she, after a long pause; “do I under- 
stand aright ? Can you mean defiance to the Emperor ? ” 

“Why, listen: at this moment there are two pre- 
tenders to the throne of Eome, — to the imperial crown 
of Italy, — a Bohemian and a Bavarian. To their elec- 
tion our assent — Home’s assent — is not requisite, not 
asked. Can we be called free — can we boast ourselves 
republican — when a stranger and a barbarian is thus 
thrust upon our necks? No; we will be free in reality 
as in name. Besides,” continued the Tribune, in a 
calmer tone, “ this seems to me politic as well as daring. 
The people incessantly demand wonders from me: how 
can I more nobly dazzle, more virtuously win them, 
than by asserting their inalienable right to choose their 
own rulers? The daring will awe the barons, and 
foreigners themselves ; it will give a startling example 
to all Italy ; it will be the first brand of a universal 
blaze. It shall be done, and with a pomp that befits 
the deed!” 

“Cola,” said Nina, hesitatingly, “your eagle spirit 
often ascends where mine flags to follow; yet be not 
over-bold. ” 

“ Nay, did you not, a moment since, preach a different 
doctrine? To be strong, was I not to seem strong? ” 

“May fate preserve you!” said Nina, with a fore- 
boding sigh. 

“Fate!” cried Hienzi; “there is wo fate! Between 
the thought and the success, God is the only agent; 
and,” he added, with a voice of deep solemnity, “ I 
shall not be deserted. Visions by night, even while 
thine arms are around me *, omens and impulses, stirring 
and divine, by day, even in the midst of the living 
crowd, — encourage my path, and point my goal. Now, 
even now, a voice seems to whisper in my ear, ‘ Pause 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 281 

not, tremble not, waver not; for the eye of the All- 
seeing is upon thee, and the hand of the All-powerful 
shall protect ! ’ ” 

As Rienzi thus spoke, his face grew pale, his hair 
seemed' to bristle, his tall and proud form trembled 
visibly; and presently he sunk down on a seat, and 
covered his face with his hands. . 

An awe crept over Nina, though not unaccustomed to 
such strange and preternatural emotions, which appeared 
yet the more singular in one who in common life was 
so calm, stately, and self-possessed. But with every 
increase of prosperity and power, those emotions seemed 
to increase in their fervor, as if in such increase the 
devout and overwrought superstition of the Tribune 
recognized additional proof of a mysterious guardian- 
ship mightier than the valor or art of man. 

She approached fearfully, and threw her arms around 
him, but without speaking. 

Ere yet the Tribune had well recovered himself, a 
slight tap at the door was heard , and the sound seemed 
at once to recall his self-possession. 

“Enter,” he said, lifting his face, to which the 
wonted color slowly returned. 

An officer, half opening the door, announced that the 
person he had sent for waited his leisure. 

“ I come ! — Core of my heart ” (he whispered to 
Nina), “ we will sup alone to-night, and will converse 
more on these matters. ” So saying, with somewhat less 
than his usual loftiness of mien, he left the room, and 
sought his cabinet, which lay at the other side of the 
reception chamber. Here he found Cecco del Vecchio. 

“How, my bold fellow,” said the Tribune, assuming 
with wonderful ease that air of friendly equality which 
he always adopted with those of the lower class, and 


282 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


which made a striking contrast with the majesty, no less 
natural, which marked his manner to the great, — “ how 
now, my Cecco! Thou bearest thyself bravely, I see, 
during these sickly heats ; we laborers — for both of us 
labor, Cecco — are too busy to fall ill as the idle do, in 
the summer or the autumn of Eoman skies. I sent 
for thee, Cecco, because I would know how thy fellow- 
craftsmen are like to take the Orsini’s execution.” 

“Oh, Tribune,” replied the artificer, who, now 
familiarized with Eienzi, had lost much of his earlier 
awe of him, and who regarded the Tribune’s power as 
partly his own creation, “ they are already out of their 
honest wits at your courage in punishing the great men 
as you would the small.” 

“ So, — I am repaid! But hark you, Cecco, it will 
bring, perhaps, hot work upon us. Every baron will 
dread lest it be his turn next ; and dread will make them 
bold, like rats in despair. We may have to fight for 
the Good Estate.” 

“ With all my heart. Tribune,” answered Cecco, 
gruffly. “ I, for one, am no craven. ” 

“ Then keep the same spirit in all your meetings with 
the artificers. I fight for the people. The people at a 
pinch must fight with me.” 

“ They will,” replied Cecco; “ they will! ” 

“ Cecco, this city is under the spiritual dominion of 
the pontiff, — so be it: it is an honor, not a burden. 
But the temporal dominion, my friend, should be 
with Romans only. Is it not a disgrace to Republican 
Rome, that while we now speak, certain barbarians 
whom we never heard of should be deciding beyond 
the Alps on the merits of two sovereigns whom we 
never saw? Is not this a thing to be resisted? An 
Italian city, — what hath it to do with a Bohemian 
emperor ? ” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 283 


" Little eno’, St. Paul knows! ” said Cecco. 

“ Should it not be a claim questioned 1 ” 

“ I think so! ” replied the smith. 

“ And if found an outrage on our ancient laws, should 
it not be a claim resisted ? ” 

“ Not a doubt of it. ” 

“Well, go to! The archives assure me that never 
was emperor lawfully crowned but by the free votes of 
the people. We never chose Bohemian or Bavarian." 

“ But, on the contrary, whenever these Northmen 
come hither to be crowned, we try to drive them away 
with stones and curses, — for we are a people. Tribune, 
that love our liberties.” 

“ Go back to your friends, — see, address them, say 
that your Tribune will demand of these pretenders to 
Borne the right to her throne. Let them not be mazed 
or startled, but support me when the occasion comes.” 

“ I am glad of this,” quoth the huge smith; “ for our 
friends have grown a little unruly of late, and say — ” 

“ What do they say 1 ” 

“ That it is true you have expelled the banditti, and 
curb the barons, and administer justice fairly — ” 

“ Is not that miracle enough for the space of some two 
or three short months ? ” 

“ Why, they say it would have been more than enough 
in a noble; but you, being raised from the people, and 
having such gifts and so forth, might do yet more. It 
is now three weeks since they have had any new thing 
to talk about; but Orsini’s execution to-day will cheer 
them a bit.” 

“ Well, Cecco, well,” said the Tribune, rising, “ they 
shall have more anon to feed their mouths with. So 
you think they love me not quite so well as they did 
some three weeks back ? ” 


284 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

“I say not so,” answered Cecco. ".But we Romans 
are an impatient people.” 

'' Alas, yes ! ” 

" However, they will no doubt stick close enough to 
you; provided. Tribune, .you don’t put any new tax 
upon them.” 

“ Ha! But if, in order to be free, it be necessary to 
fight, — if to fight, it be necessary to have soldiers, why 
then the soldiers must be paid: won’t the people con- 
tribute something to their own liberties, — to just laws 
and safe lives 1 ” 

“ I don’t know,” returned the smith, scratching his 
head as if a little puzzled; " but I know that poor men 
won’t be overtaxed. They say they are better off with 
you than with the barons before, and therefore they 
love you. But men in business. Tribune, poor men 
with families, must look to their bellies. Only one 
man in ten goes to law, — only one man in twenty is 
butchered by a baron’s brigand; but every man eats, 
and drinks, and feels a tax.” 

“ This cannot be your reasoning, Cecco! ” said Rienzi, 
gravely. 

" Why, Tribune, I am an honest man, but I have a 
large family to rear.” 

" Enough, enough! ” said the Tribune, quickly; and 
then he added abstractedly as to himself, but aloud, 
“ Methinks we have been too lavish; these shows and 
spectacles should cease.” 

" What ! ” cried Cecco ; " what. Tribune ! — would 
you deny the poor fellows a holiday? They work 
hard enough, and their only pleasure is seeing your 
fine shows and processions ; and then they go home and 
say, ‘See, owr man beats all the barons! what state he 
keeps ! ’ ” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 285 


“ Ah! they blame not my splendor, then T " 

“Blame it; no! Without it they would he ashamed 
of you, and think the Buono Stato but a shabby 
concern.’’ 

“ You speak bluntly, Cecco, but perhaps wisely. 
The saints keep you! Fail not to remember what I 
told you ! ” 

“ No, no. It is a shame to have an emperor thrust 
upon us, — so it is. Good evening, Tribune.” 

Left alone, the Tribune remained for some time 
plunged in gloomy and foreboding thoughts. 

“ I am in the midst of a magician’s spell,” said he; 
“ if I desist, the fiends tear me to pieces. What I have 
begun, that must I conclude. But this rude man shows 
me too well with what tools I work. For me failure 
is nothing. I have already climbed to a greatness 
which might render giddy many a born prince’s brain. 
But with my fall — Rome, Italy, Peace, Justice, Civili- 
zation — all fall back into the abyss of ages! ” 

He rose; and after once or twice pacing his apart- 
ment, in which from many a column gleamed upon him 
the marble effigies of the great of old, he opened the 
casement to inhale the air of the now declining day. 

The Place of the Capitol was deserted save by the 
tread of the single sentinel. But still, dark and fear- 
ful, hung from the tall gibbet the clay of the robber 
noble; and the colossal shape of the Egyptian lion rose 
hard by, sharp and dark in the breathless atmosphere. 

“ Dread statue ! ” thought Rienzi, “ how many un whis- 
pered and solemn rites hast thou witnessed by thy native 
Nile, ere the Roman’s hand transferred thee hither, — 
the antique witness of Roman crimes! Strange! but 
when I look upon thee I feel as if thou hadst some 
mystic influence over my own fortunes. Beside thee 


286 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

was I hailed the republican lord of Eome ; beside thee 
are my palace, my tribunal, the place of my justice, my 
triumphs, and my pomp; to thee my eyes turn from my 
bed of state; and if fated to die in power and peace, 
thou mayst he the last object my eyes will mark! Or 
if myself a victim — ” He paused, shrank from the 
thought presented to him, turned to a recess of the 
chamber, drew aside a curtain that veiled a crucifix 
and a small table, on which lay a Bible and the monastic 
emblems of the skull and cross-bones, — emblems, in- 
deed, grave and irresistible, of the nothingness of power 
and the uncertainty of life. Before these sacred moni- 
tors, whether to humble or to elevate, knelt that proud 
and aspiring man; and when he rose, it was with a 
lighter step and more cheerful mien than he had worn 
that day. 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 287 


CHAPTER III. 

The Actor Unmasked. 

‘ In intoxication,” says the proverb, “ men betray their 
real characters.” There is a no less honest and truth- 
revealing intoxication in prosperity than in 'wine. The 
varnish of po'wer brings forth at once the defects and the 
beauties of the human portrait. ' 

The unprecedented and almost miraculous rise of 
Rienzi from the rank of the pontiff’s official to the 
Lord of Rome, -would have been accompanied with a 
yet greater miracle, if it had not somewhat dazzled and 
seduced the object it elevated. When, as in well- 
ordered states and tranquil times, men rise slowly, 
step by step, they accustom themselves to their grow- 
ing fortunes; but the leap of an hour from a citizen 
to a prince — from the victim of oppression to the dis- 
penser of justice — is a transition so sudden as to render 
dizzy the most sober brain. And, perhaps, in propor- 
tion to the imagination, the enthusiasm, the genius of 
the man, will the suddenness be dangerous, excite 
too extravagant a hope, and lead to too chimerical an 
ambition. The qualities that made him rise hurry him 
to his fall ; and victoryi at the Marengo of his fortunes 
urges him to destruction at its Moscow. 

In his greatness Rienzi did not so much acquire 
new qualities as develop in brighter light and deeper 
shadow those which he had always exhibited. On 
the one hand he was just, resolute, the friend of the 


288 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


oppressed, the terror of the oppressor. His wonderful 
intellect illumined everything it touched. By rooting 
out abuse, and by searching examination and wise 
arrangement, he had trebled the revenues of the city 
without imposing a single new tax. Faithful to his 
idol of liberty, he had not been betrayed by the wish 
of the people into despotic authority; but had, as we 
have seen, formally revived, and established with new 
powers, the Parliamentary Council of the city. How- 
ever extensive his own authority, he referred its exer- 
cise to the people; in their name he alone declared 
himself to govern, and he never executed any signal 
action without submitting to them its reasons or its 
justification. No less faithful to his desire to restore 
prosperity as well as freedom to Borne, he had seized 
the first dazzling epoch of his power to propose that 
great federative league with the Italian states which 
would, as he rightly said, have raised Borne to the 
indisputable head of European nations. Under his rule 
trade was secure, literature was welcome, art began to 
rise. 

On the other hand, the prosperity which made more 
apparent his justice, his integrity, his patriotism, his 
virtues, and his genius, brought out no less glaringly 
his arrogant consciousness of superiority, his love of 
display, and the wild and daring insolence of his ambi- 
tion. Though too just to avenge himself by retaliating 
on the patricians their own violence, though in his 
troubled and stormy tribuneship not one unmerited or 
illegal execution of baron or citizen could be alleged 
against him even by his enemies; yet sharing less 
excusably the weakness of Nina, he could not deny 
his proud heart the pleasure of humiliating those who 
had ridiculed him as a buffoon, despised him as a 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


289 


plebeian, and who even now, slaves to bis face, were 
cynics behind his back. “ They stood before him while 
he sat,” says his biographer, “all these barons, bare- 
headed, their hands crossed on their breasts, their 
looks downcast, — oh, how frightened they were! ” — a. 
picture more disgraceful to the servile cowardice of the 
nobles than the haughty sternness of the Tribune. It 
might be that he deemed it policy to break the spirit 
of his foes, and to awe those whom it was a vain hope 
to conciliate. 

For his pomp there was a greater excuse : it was the 
custom of the time; it was the insignia and witness of 
power; and when the modern historian taunts him with 
not imitating the simplicity of an ancient Tribune, the 
sneer betrays an ignorance of the spirit of the age, and 
the vain people whom the chief magistrate was to 
govern. No doubt his gorgeous festivals, his solemn 
processions, set off and ennobled — if parade can be so 
ennobled — by a refined and magnificent richness of 
imagination, associated always with popular emblems, 
and designed to convey the idea of rejoicing for Liberty 
Restored, and to assert the state and majesty of Rome 
Revived, — no doubt these spectacles, however otherwise 
judged in a more enlightened age and by closet sages, 
served greatly to augment the importance of the Tribune 
abroad, and to dazzle the pride of a fickle and ostenta- 
tious populace. And taste grew refined, luxury called 
labor into requisition, and foreigners from all states 
were attracted by the splendor of a court over which 
presided, under republican names, two sovereigns,^ 

1 Rienzi, speaking in one of his letters of his great enterprise, 
refers it to the ardor of youth. The exact date of his birth is 
unknown ; but he was certainly a young man at the time now re- 
ferred to. His portrait in the Museo Barberino, from which his 
VOL. I. — 19 


290 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

young and brilliant, — the one renowned for his genius, 
the other eminent for her beauty. It was, indeed, a 
dazzling and royal dream in the long night of Rome, 
spoiled of her pontiff and his voluptuous train, — that 
holiday reign of Cola di Rienzi! And often afterwards 
it was recalled with a sigh, not only by the poor for its 
justice, the merchant for its security, but the gallant 
for its splendor, and the poet for its ideal and intel- 
lectual grace! 

As if to show that it was not to gratify the more 
vulgar appetite and desire, in the midst of all his pomp, 
when the board groaned with the delicacies of every 
clime, when the wine most freely circled, the Tribune 
himself preserved a temperate and even rigid absti- 
nence.^ While the apartments of state and the cham- 
ber of his bride were adorned with a profuse luxury 
and cost, to his own private rooms he transported pre- 
cisely the same furniture which had been familiar to 
him in his obscurer life. The books, the busts, the 
reliefs, the arms which had inspired him heretofore 
with the visions of the past, were endeared by associa- 
tions which he did not care to forego. 

But that which constituted the most singular feature 
of his character, and which still wraps all around him 
in a certain mystery, was his religious enthusiasm. 

description has been already taken in the first book of this work, 
represents him as beardless, and, as far as one can judge, some- 
where about thirty, — old enough, to be sure, to have a beard ; and 
seven years afterwards he wore a long one, which greatly dis- 
pleased his naive biographer, who seems to consider it a sort of 
crime. The head is very remarkable for its stern beauty, and little, 
if at all, inferior to that of Napoleon ; to which, as I have before 
remarked, it has some resemblance in expression, if not in feature. 

1 “ Vita di Cola di Rienzi.” — The biographer praises the absti- 
nence of the Tribune. 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 291 


The daring but wild doctrines of Arnold of Brescia, 
who, two centuries anterior, had preached reform hut 
inculcated mysticism, still lingered in Rome, and had 
in earlier youth deeply colored the mind of Rienzi ; and 
as I have before observed, his youthful propensity to 
dreamy thought, the melancholy death of his brother, 
his own various but successful fortunes, had all con- 
tributed to nurse the more zealous and solemn aspira- 
tions of this remarkable man. Like Arnold of Brescia, 
his faith bore a strong resemblance to the intense fanati- 
cism of our own Puritans of the Civil War, as if similar 
political circumstances conduced to similar religious 
sentiments. He believed himself inspired by awful 
and mighty commune with beings of the better world. 
Saints and angels ministered to his dreams; and with- 
out this, the more profound and hallowed enthusiasm, 
he might never have been sufficiently emboldened by 
mere human patriotism to his unprecedented enterprise*, 
it was the secret of much of his greatness, many of 
his errors. Like all men who are thus self-deluded by 
a vain but not inglorious superstition, united with and 
colored by earthly ambition, it is impossible to say how 
far he was the visionary, and how far at times he dared 
to be the impostor. In the ceremonies of his pageants, 
in the ornaments of his person, were invariably intro- 
duced mystic and figurative emblems. In times of 
danger he publicly professed to have been cheered and 
directed by divine dreams; and on many occasions, the 
prophetic warnings he announced having been singularly 
verified by the event, his influence with the people was 
strengthened by a belief in the favor and intercourse of 
Heaven. Thus, delusion of self might tempt and con- 
duce to imposition on others, and he might not scruple 
to avail himself of the advantage of seeming what he 


292 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

believed himself to be. Yet no doubt this intoxicat- 
ing credulity pushed him into extravagance unworthy 
of, and strangely contrasted by his soberer intellect, 
and made him disproportion his vast ends to his 
unsteady means by the proud fallacy that where man 
failed, God would interpose. Cola di Rienzi was no 
faultless hero of romance. In him lay in conflicting 
prodigality the richest and most opposite elements of 
character, — strong sense, visionary superstition, an elo- 
quence and energy that mastered all he approached, a 
blind enthusiasm that mastered himself; luxury and 
abstinence, sternness and susceptibility, pride to the 
great, humility to the low; the most devoted patriotism 
and the most avid desire of personal power. As few 
men undertake great and desperate designs without 
strong animal spirits, so it may be observed that with 
most who have risen to eminence over the herd, there 
is an aptness at times to a wild mirth and an elasticity 
of humor which often astonish the more sober and regu- 
lated minds that are “ the commoners of life; and the 
theatrical grandeur of Napoleon, the severe dignity of 
Cromwell, are strangely contrasted by a frequent nor 
always seasonable buffoonery, which it is hard to recon- 
cile with the ideal of their characters, or the gloomy 
and portentous interest of their careers. And this, 
equally a trait in the temperament of Rienzi, distin- 
guished his hours of relaxation, and contributed to 
that marvellous versatility with which his harder na- 
ture accommodated itself to all humors and all men. 
Often from his austere judgment-seat, he passed to the 
social board an altered man ; and even the sullen barons 
who reluctantly attended his feasts forgot his public 
greatness in his familiar wit; albeit this reckless humor 


RIENZT, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 293 

could not always refrain from seeking its subject in the 
mortification of his crestfallen foes, — a pleasure it 
would have been wiser and more generous to forego. 
And perhaps it was, in part, the prompting of this 
sarcastic and unbridled humor that made him often 
love to astonish as well as to awe. But even this 
gayety, if so it may be called, taking an appearance of 
familiar frankness, served much to ingratiate him with 
the lower orders; and, if a fault in the prince, was a 
virtue in the demagogue. 

To these various characteristics, now fully developed, 
the reader must add a genius of designs so bold, of con- 
ceptions so gigantic and august, conjoined with that 
more minute and ordinary ability which masters details, 
that with a brave, noble, intelligent, devoted people to 
back his projects, the accession of the Tribune would 
have been the close of the thraldom of Italy, and the 
abrupt limit of the dark age of Europe. With such 
a people his faults would have been insensibly checked, 
his more unwholesome power have received a sufficient 
curb. Experience familiarizing him with power would 
have gradually weaned him from extravagance in its 
display; and the active and masculine energy of his 
intellect would have found field for the more restless 
spirits, as his justice gave shelter to the more tranquil. 
Faults he had ; but whether those faults or the faults of 
the people were to prepare his downfall, is yet to be 
seen. 

Meanwhile, amidst a discontented nobility and a 
fickle populace, urged on by the danger of repose to 
the danger of enterprise; partly blinded by his outward 
power, partly impelled by the fear of internal weakness; 
at once made sanguine by his genius and his fanaticism, 


294 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


and uneasy by the expectations of the crowd, — ■ he threw 
himself headlong into the gulf of the rushing Time, 
and surrendered his lofty spirit to no other guidance 
than a conviction of its natural buoyancy and its 
heaven-directed haven. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 295 


CHAPTER IV. 


The Enemy’s Camp. 

While Rienzi was preparing, in concert, perhaps, with 
the ambassadors of the brave Tuscan States, whose pride 
of country and love of liberty were well fitted to com- 
prehend and even share them, his schemes for the 
emancipation from all foreign yoke of the Ancient 
Queen, and the Everlasting Garden, of the World, — 
the barons, in restless secrecy, were revolving projects 
for the restoration of their own power. 

One morning the heads of the Savelli, the Orsini, 
and the Frangipani met at the disfortified palace of 
Stephen Colonna. Their conference was warm and 
earnest, — now resolute, now wavering in its object, 
as indignation or fear prevailed. 

“ You have heard,” said Luca di Savelli, in his usual 
soft and womanly voice, “ that the Tribune has pro- 
claimed that the day after to-morrow he will take 
the order of knighthood, and watch the night before in 
the church of the Lateran : he has honored me with a 
request to attend his vigil.” 

“Yes, 3"es, the knave. What means this new fan- 
tasy ? ” said the brutal Prince of the Orsini. 

“ Unless it be to have the cavalier’s right to chal- 
lenge a noble,” said old Colonna, “ I cannot conjecture. 
Will Rome never grow weary of this madman ? ” 

“Rome is the more mad of the two,” said Luca di 
Savelli; “but me thinks, in his wildness, the Tribune 


296 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


hath committed one error of which we may well avail 
ourselves at Avignon.” 

“ Ah,” cried the old Colonna, “ that must be our 
game; passive here, let us fight at Avignon.” 

“ In a word, then, he hath ordered that his bath shall 
be prepared in the holy porphyry vase in which once 
bathed the Emperor Constantine.” 

“Profanation! profanation!” cried Stephen. “This 
is enough to excuse a bull of excommunication. The 
pope shall hear of it. I will despatch a courier 
forthwith. ” 

“ Better wait and see the ceremony,” said the Savelli : 
“ some greater folly will close the pomp, be assured.” 

“Hark ye, my masters,” said the grim Lord of the 
Orsini: “ye are for delay and caution; I for prompt- 
ness and daring, — my kinsman’s blood calls aloud, and 
brooks no parley.” 

“ And what do 1 ” said the soft-voiced Savelli ; “ fight 
without soldiers against twenty thousand infuriated 
Eomans? Not I.” 

Orsini sank his voice into a meaning whisper. “ In 
Venice,” said he, “ this upstart might be mastered with- 
out an army. Think you in Borne no man wears a 
stiletto ! ” 

“Hush!” said Stephen, who was of far nobler and 
better nature than his compeers, and who, justifying 
to himself all other resistance to the Tribune, felt his 
conscience rise against assassination ; “ this must not 
be, — your zeal transports you.” 

“ Besides, whom can we employ ? Scarce a German 
left in the city; and to whisper this to a Boman were 
to exchange places with poor Martino, — Heaven take 
him, for he ’s nearer heaven than ever he was before,” 
said the Savelli. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OE THE TRIBUNES. 297 


“ Jest me no jests,” cried the Orsini, fiercely. “ Jests 
on such a subject! By St. Francis, I would, since thou 
lovest such wit, thou hadst it all to thyself; and, me- 
thinks, at the Tribune’s hoard I have seen thee laugh 
at his rude humor, as if thou didst not require a cord to 
choke thee. ” 

“ Better to laugh than to tremble,” returned the 
Savelli. 

“ How, darest thou say I tremble ? ” cried the baron. 

“ Hush, hush! ” said the veteran Colonna, with im- 
patient dignity. “We are not now in such holiday 
times as to quarrel amongst ourselves. Forbear, my 
lords! ” 

“Your greater prudence, signor,” said the sarcastic 
Savelli, “ arises from your greater safety. Your house 
is about to shelter itself under the Tribune’s ; and when 
the Lord Adrian returns from Naples, the innkeeper’s 
son will be brother to your kinsman.” 

“ You might spare me that taunt,” said the old noble, 
with some emotion. “ Heaven knows how bitterly I 
have chafed at the thought; yet I would Adrian were 
with us. His word goes far to moderate the Tribune, 
and to guide my own course, for my passion beguiles 
my reason; and since his departure, methinks we have 
been the more sullen without being the more strong. 
Let this pass. If my own son had wed the Tribune’s 
sister, I would yet strike a blow for the old constitu- 
tion as becomes a noble, if I but saw that the blow 
would not cut off my own head.” 

Savelli , who had been whispering apart with Rinaldo 
Frangipani, now said, — 

“Noble prince, listen to me. You are bound by 
your kinsman’s approaching connection, your venerable 
age, and your intimacy with the pontiff, to a greater 


298 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


caution than we are. Leave to us the management of 
the enterprise, and be assured of our discretion.” 

A young hoy, Stefanello, who afterwards succeeded 
to the representation of the direct line of the Colonna, 
and whom the reader will once again encounter ere our 
tale be closed, was playing by his grandsire’s knees. 
He looked sharply up at Savelli, and said: “My grand- 
father is too wise, and you are too timid. Frangipani 
is too yielding, and Orsini is too like a vexed hull. I 
wish I were a year or two older.” 

“ And what would you do, my pretty censurer ? ” said 
the smooth Savelli, biting his smiling lip. 

“ Stab the Tribune with my own stiletto, and then 
hey for Palestrina ! ” 

“The egg will hatch a brave serpent,” quoth the 
Savelli. “ Yet why so bitter against the Tribune, my 
cockatrice ? ” 

“ Because he allowed an insolent mercer to arrest my 
uncle Agapet for debt. The debt had been owed these 
ten years ; and though it is said that no house in Borne 
has owed more money than the Colonna, this is the first 
time I ever heard of a rascally creditor being allowed 
to claim his debt unless with doffed cap and bended 
knee. And I say that I would not live to be a baron if 
such upstart insolence is to be put upon me.” 

“ My child,” said old Stephen, laughing heartily, “ I 
see our noble order will be safe enough in your hands. ” 

“ And,” continued the child, emboldened by the 
applause he received, “ if I had time after pricking the 
Tribune, I would fain have a second stroke at — ” 

“ Whom ? ” said the Savelli, observing the boy pause. 

“ My cousin Adrian. Shame on him, for dreaming 
to make one a wife whose birth would scarce fit her for 
a Colonna’s leman!” 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 299 


" Go play, my child, — go play,” said the old Colonna, 
as he pushed the boy from him. 

" Enough of this babble,” cried the Orsini, rudely. 
" Tell me, old lord; just as I entered I saw an old friend 
(one of your former mercenaries) quit the palace, — may 
I crave his errand ? ” 

“Ah, yes; a messenger from Fra Moreale. I wrote 
to the knight, reproving him for his desertion on our 
ill-starred return from Corneto, and intimating that five 
hundred lances would be highly paid for just now.” 

“ Ah! ” said Savelli; ‘‘and what is his answer? ” 

“ Oh, wily and ev|give ! He is profuse in compli- 
ments and good wishes; but says he is under fealty to 
the Hungarian king, whose cause is before E-ienzi's 
tribunal; that he cannot desert his present standard; 
that he fears Home is so evenly balanced between 
patricians and the people that whatever party would 
permanently be uppermost must call in a Podesta ; and 
this character alone, the Provengal insinuates would 
suit him.” 

“ Montreal our Podesta ? ” cried the Orsini. 

“ And why not ? ” said Savelli ; “ as good a well-born 
Podesta as a low-born Tribune ? But I trust we may 
do without either. Colonna, has this messenger from 
Fra Moreale left the city ? ” 

“ I suppose so.” 

“ISTo,” said Orsini; “I met him at the gate, and 
knew him of old : it is Rodolph the Saxon (once a hire- 
ling of the Colonna) , who has made some widows among 
my clients in the good old day. He is a little disguised 
now; however, I recognized and accosted him, for I 
thought he was one who might yet become a friend, 
and I bade him await me at my palace.” 

“You did well,” said the Savelli, musing; and his 


300 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


eyes met those of Orsini. Shortly afterwards a con- 
ference in which much was said and nothing settled 
was broken up; but Luca di Savelli, loitering at the 
porch, prayed the Frangipani and the other barons to 
adjourn to the Orsini’s palace. 

“ The old Colonna,” said he, “ is well-nigh in his 
dotage. We shall come to a quick determination with- 
out him, and we can secure his proxy in his son.” 

And this was a true prophecy, for half an hour’s con- 
sultation with - Eodolph of Saxony sufficed to ripen 
thought into enterprise. 


V 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 301 


CHAPTEE V. 

The Night and its Incidents. 

With the following twilight Eome was summoned to 
the commencement of the most magnificent spectacle 
the imperial city had witnessed since the fall of the 
Caesars. It had been a singular privilege, arrogated by 
the people of Eome, to confer upon their citizens the 
order of knighthood. Twenty years before, a Colonna 
and an Orsini had received this popular honor. Eienzi, 
who designed it as the prelude to a more important 
ceremony,' claimed from the Eomans a similar distinc- 
tion. From the Capitol to the Lateran swept, in long 
procession, all that Eome boasted of noble, of fair, and 
brave. First went horsemen without number, and from 
all the neighboring parts of Italy, in apparel that well 
befitted the occasion. Trumpeters, and musicians of 
all kinds, followed, and the trumpets were of silver; 
youths bearing the harness of the knightly war-steed, 
wrought with gold, preceded the march of the loftiest 
mafcronage of Eome, whose love for show and it may 
be whose admiration for triumphant fame (which to 
women sanctions many offences) made them forget the 
humbled greatness of their lords: amidst them Nina 
and Irene, outshining all the rest; then came the 
Tribune and the pontifif^s vicar, surrounded by all the 
great signors of the city, smothering alike resentment, 
revenge, and scorn, and struggling who should approach 
nearest to the monarch of the day. The high-hearted 


302 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


old Colonna alone remained aloof, following at a little 
distance, and in a garb studiously plain. But his age, 
his rank, his former renown in war and state, did not 
suffice to draw to his gray locks and high-born mien a 
single one of the shouts that attended the meanest lord 
on whom the great Tribune smiled. Savelli followed 
nearest to Rienzi, the most obsequious of the courtly 
hand ; immediately before the Tribune came two men : 
the one bore a drawn sword, the other the pendone^ or 
standard usually assigned to royalty. The Tribune 
himself was clothed in a long robe of white satin, whose 
snowy dazzle (miri candoris) is peculiarly dwelt on by 
the historian, richly decorated with gold; while on his 
breast were many of those mystic symbols I have before 
alluded to, the exact meaning of which was perhaps 
known only to the wearer. In his dark eye, and on 
that large tranquil brow, in which thought seemed to 
sleep as sleeps a storm, there might be detected a mind 
abstracted from the pomp around; but ever and anon he 
roused himself, and conversed partially with Raimond 
or Savelli. 

“ This is a quaint game,” said the Orsini, falling back 
to the old Colonna; “ but it may end tragically.” 

“Methinks it may,” said the old man; “ if the Tri- 
bune overhear thee.” 

Orsini grew pale. "How, — nay, nay, even if he 
did, he never resents words, but professes to laugh at 
our spoken rage. It was but the other day that some 
knave told him what one of the Annibaldi said of him, 
— words for which a true cavalier would have drawn the 
speaker’s life’s blood; and he sent for the Annibaldi, 
and said, ‘My friend, receive this purse of gold, — court 
wits should be paid. ’ ” 

" Did Annibaldi take the gold ? ” 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 303 


“Why, no; the Tribune was pleased with his spirit, 
and made him sup with him; and Annihaldi says he 
never spent a merrier evening, and no longer wonders 
that his kinsman, Riccardo, loves the buffoon so.” 

Arrived now at the Lateran, Luca di Savelli fell also 
hack, and whispered to Orsini; the Frangipani and 
some other of the nobles exchanged meaning looks. 
Eienzi, entering the sacred edifice in which, according 
to custom, he was to pass the night watching his armor, 
bade the crowd farewell, and summoned them the next 
morning, “ to hear things that might, he trusted, be 
acceptable to heaven and earth.” 

The immense multitude received this intimation 
with curiosity and gladness, while those who had been 
in some measure prepared by Cecco del Vecchio, hailed 
it as an omen of their Tribune’s unflagging resolution. 
The concourse dispersed with singular order and quiet- 
ness; it was recorded as a remarkable fact, that in so 
great a crowd, composed of men of all parties, none 
exhibited license or indulged in quarrel. Some of the 
barons and cavaliers, among whom was Luca di Savelli, 
whose sleek urbanity and sarcastic humor found favor 
with the Tribune, and a few subordinate pages and 
attendants, alone remained; and, save a single sentinel 
at the porch, that broad space before the palace, the 
Basilica and Fount of Constantine, soon presented a 
silent and desolate void to the melancholy moonlight. 
Within the church, according to the usage of the time 
and rite, the descendant of the Teuton kings received 
the order of the Santo Spirito. His pride, or some 
superstition equally weak, though more excusable, led 
him to bathe in the porphyry vase which an absurd 
legend consecrated to Constantine; and this, as Savelli 
predicted, cost him dear. These appointed ceremonies 


304 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TKIBUNES. 


concluded, his arms were placed in that part of the 
church within the columns of St. John. And here 
his state bed was prepared.^ 

The attendant barons, pages, and chamberlains re- 
tired out of sight to a small side chapel in the edi- 
fice; and Eienzi was left alone. A single lamp, placed 
beside his bed, contended with the mournful rays of 
the moon, that cast through the long casements, over 
aisle and pillar, its “dim, religious light.” The sanc- 
tity of the place, the solemnity of the hour, and the 
solitary silence round, were well calculated to deepen 
the high-wrought and earnest mood of that son of 
fortune. Many and high fancies swept over his mind, 
— now of worldly aspirations, now of more august hut 
visionary belief, till at length, wearied with his own 
reflections, he cast himself on the bed. It was an omen 
which graver history has not neglected to record, that 
the moment he pressed the bed, new prepared for the 
occasion, part of it sank under him: he himself was 
affected by the accident, and sprang forth, turning pale 
and muttering; but, as if ashamed of his weakness, 
after a moment’s pause, again composed himself to rest, 
and drew the drapery round him. 

The moonbeams grew fainter and more faint as the 
time proceeded, and the sharp distinction between light 
and shade faded fast from the marble floor; when from 
behind a column at the furthest verge of the building, 
a strange shadow suddenly crossed the sickly light, — it 
crept on, — it moved, hut without an echo, — from pillar 
to pillar it flitted, — it rested at last behind the column 
nearest to the Tribune’s bed, — it remained stationary. 

1 In a more northern country the eve of knighthood would have 
been spent without sleeping. In Italy the ceremony of watching 
the armor does not appear to have been so rigidly observed. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 305 


The shades gathered darker and darker round: the 
stillness seemed to deepen; the moon was gone; and, 
save from the struggling ray of the lamp beside Eienzi, 
the blackness of night closed over the solemn and ghostly 
scene. 

In one of the side chapels, as I have before said, 
which, in the many alterations the church has under- 
gone, is probably long since destroyed, were Savelli and 
the few attendants retained by the Tribune. Savelli 
alone slept not; he remained sitting erect, breathless 
and listening, while the tall lights in the chapel ren- 
dered yet more impressive the rapid changes of his 
countenance. 

“Now, pray Heaven,” said he, “the knave miscarry 
not! Such an occasion may never again occur! He has 
a strong arm and a dexterous hand, doubtless; hut the 
other is a powerful man. The deed once done, I care 
not whether the doer escape or not; if not, why, we 
must stab him! Dead men tell no tales. At the worst, 
who can avenge Eienzi ? There is no other Eienzi ! 
Ourselves and the Frangipani seize the Aventine, the 
Colonna and the Orsini the other quarters of the city ; 
and without the master-spirit, we may laugh at the mad 
populace. But if discovered — ” and Savelli, who, for- 
tunately for his foes, had not nerves equal to his will, 
covered his face and shuddered. “ I think I hear a 
noise! — no, — ^is it the wind? Tush, it must be old 
Vico de Scotto turning in his shell of mail! Silent, 
— I like not that silence! No cry, no sound! Can 
the ruffian have played us false, or could he not scale 
the casement ? It is but a child’s effort, — or did the 
sentry spy him ? ” 

Time passed on; the first ray of daylight slowly 
gleamed, when he thought he heard the door of the 
VOL. I. — 20 


3'06 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


church close. Savelli’s suspense became intolerable; 
he stole from the chapel, and came in sight of the 
Tribune’s bed, — all was silent. 

“Perhaps the silence of death,” said Savelli, as he 
crept back. 

Meanwhile the Tribune, vainly endeavoring to close 
his eyes, was rendered yet more watchful by the uneasy 
position he was obliged to assume, — for the part of the 
bed towards the pillow having given way, while the 
rest remained solid, he had inverted the legitimate 
order of lying, and drawn himself up as he might best 
accommodate his limbs, towards the foot of the bed. 
The light of the lamp, though shaded by the draperies, 
was thus opposite to him. Impatient of his wakeful- 
ness, he at last thought it was this dull and flickering 
light which scared away the slumber, and was about to 
rise to remove it further from him, when he saw the 
curtain at the other end of the bed gently lifted. He 
remained quiet and alarmed; ere he could draw a 
second breath, a dark figure interposed between the 
light and the bed, and he felt that a stroke was aimed 
against that part of the couch which, but for the acci- 
dent that had seemed to him ominous, would have given 
his breast to the knife. Rienzi waited not a second 
and better-directed blow; as the assassin yet stooped, 
groping in the uncertain light, he threw on him all the 
weight and power of his large and muscular frame, 
wrenched the stiletto from the bravo’s hand, and dash- 
ing him on the bed, placed his knee on his breast. 
The stiletto rose, gleamed, descended, — the murderer 
swerved aside, and it pierced only his right arm. The 
Tribune raised, for a deadlier blow, the revengeful 
blade. 

The assassin thus foiled was a man used to all form 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 307 

and shape of danger, and he did not now lose his 
presence of mind. 

“Hold!” said he; “if you kill me, you will die 
yourself. Spare me, and I will save you. ” 

“ Miscreant! ” 

“ Hush ! not so loud, or you will disturb your 
attendants, and some of them may do what I have 
failed to execute. Spare me, I say, and I will reveal 
that which were worth more than my life; but call not, 
speak not aloud, I warn j’^ou! ” 

The Tribune felt his heart stand still; in that lonely 
place, afar from his idolizing people, his devoted guards, 
with but loathing barons, or, it might be, faithless 
menials, within call, might not the baffled murderer 
give a wholesome warning % And those words and that 
doubt seemed suddenly to reverse their respective posi- 
tions, and leave the conqueror still in the assassin^s 
power. 

“Thou thinkest to deceive me,” said he, but in a 
voice whispered and uncertain, which showed the ruf- 
fian the advantage he had gained ; “ thou wouldst that 
I might release thee without summoning my attendants, 
that thou mightst a second time attempt my life.” 

“ Thou hast disabled my right arm, and disarmed me 
of my only weapon. ” 

“ How earnest thou hither ? ” 

“ By connivance.” 

“ Whence this attempt ? ” 

“ The dictation of others. ” 

“ If I pardon thee — ” 

“ Thou shalt know all ! ” 

“Rise,” said the Tribune, releasing his prisoner, but 
with great caution, and still grasping his shoulder with 
one hand, while the other pointed the dagger at his 
throat. 


308 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ Did my sentry admit thee ? There is but one 
entrance to the church, methinks.” 

“ He did not; follow me, and I will tell thee more.” 

“ Dog ! thou hast accomplices ? ” 

" If I have, thou hast the knife at my throat.” 

" Wouldst thou escape 1 ” 

“ I cannot, or I would.” 

Eienzi looked hard, by the dull light of the lamp, at 
the assassin. His rugged and coarse countenance, rude 
garb, and barbarian speech seemed to him proof suffi- 
cient that he was but the hireling of others; and it 
might be wise to brave one danger present and certain, 
to prevent much danger future and unforeseen. Eienzi, 
too, was armed, strong, active, in the prime of life; 
and, at the worst, there was no part of the building 
whence his voice would not reach those within the 
chapel, — if they could be depended upon. 

“ Show me, then, thy place and means of entrance,” 
said he; “and if I but suspect thee as we move, thou 
diest. Take up the lamp.” 

The ruffian nodded; with his left hand took up the 
lamp as he was ordered; and with Eienzi’s grasp on his 
shoulder, while the wound from his right arm dropped 
gore as he passed, he moved noiselessly along the church, 
gained the altar, — to the left of which was a small 
room for the use or retirement of the priest. To this he 
made his way. Eienzi ’s heart misgave him a moment. 

“ Beware ! ” he whispered ; “ the least sign of fraud, 
and thou art the first victim ! ” 

The assassin nodded again, and proceeded. They 
entered the room; and then the Tribune’s strange 
guide pointed to an open casement. “ Behold my 
entrance,” said he; “and, if you permit me, my 
egress — ” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 309 


“ The frog gets not out of the well so easily as he 
came in, friend,” returned Rienzi, smiling. “And 
now, if I am not to call my guards, what am I to do 
with thee ” 

“ Let me go, and I will seek thee to-morrow; and if 
thou payest me handsomely, and promisest not to harm 
limb or life, I will put thine enemies and my employers 
in thy power.” 

Rienzi could not refrain from a slight laugh at the 
proposition, but, composing himself, replied, “ And what 
if I call my attendants, and give thee to their charge ? ” 

“ Thou givest me to those very enemies and employers ; 
and in despair lest I betray them, ere the day dawn, they 
cut my throat — or thine.” 

“ Methinks, knave, I have seen thee before? ” 

“ Thou hast. I blush not for name or country. I 
am Rodolph of Saxony ! ” 

“ I remember me, — servitor of Walter de Montreal. 
He,, then, is thy instigator! ” 

“ Roman, no! That noble knight scorns other weapon 
than the open sword, and his own hand slays his own 
foes. Your pitiful, miserable, dastard Italians alone 
employ the courage, and hire the arm, of others.” 

Rienzi remained silent. He had released hold of 
his prisoner, and stood facing him, every now and 
then regarding his countenance, and again relapsing 
into thought. At length, casting his eyes round the 
small chamber thus singularly tenanted, he observed a 
kind of closet, in which the priests’ robes and some 
articles used in the sacred service were contained. It 
suggested at once an escape from his dilemma; he 
pointed to it, — 

“ There, Rodolph of Saxony, shalt thou pass some 
part of this night, — a small penance for thy meditated 


310 EIENZT, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


crime; and to-morrow, as thou lookest for life, thou 
wilt reveal all.” 

“Hark ye, Tribune,” returned the Saxon, doggedly; 
“ my liberty is in your power, hut neither my tongue 
nor my life. If I consent to be caged in that hole , you 
must swear on the crossed hilt of the dagger that you 
now hold, that, on confession of all I know, you pardon 
and set me free. My employers are enough to glut your 
rage an you were a tiger. If you do not swear this — ” 

“ Ah, my modest friend ! — the alternative ? ” 

“ I brain myself against the stone wall ! Better such 
a death than the rack ! ” 

“ Bool, I want not revenge against such as thou. Be 
honest, and I swear that, twelve hours after thy confes- 
sion, thou shalt stand safe and unscathed without the 
walls of Borne. So help me our Lord and his saints ! ” 

“I am content ! — Donner und Hagel^ I have lived 
long enough to care only for my own life, and the 
great captain’s next to it; for the rest, I reck not if ye 
southerns cut each other’s throats, and make all Italy 
one grave.” 

With this benevolent speech, Bodolph entered the 
closet; but ere Bienzi could close the door, he stepped 
forth again. 

“ Hold I ” said he ; “ this blood flows fast. Help me to 
bandage it, or I shall bleed to death ere my confession.” 

“Per fede,^^ said the Tribune, his strange humor 
enjoying the man’s cool audacity; “but, considering 
the service thou wouldst have rendered me, thou art 
the most pleasant, forbearing, unabashed good fellow 
I have seen this many a year. Give us thine own belt. 
I little thought my first eve of knighthood would have 
been so charitably spent! ” 

“ Methinks these robes would make a better bandage,” 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 311 


said Rodolph, pointing to the priests^ gear suspended 
from the wall. 

“Silence, knave,” said the Tribune, frowning; “no 
sacrilege! Yet, as thou takest such dainty care of thy- 
self, thou shalt have mine own scarf to accommodate 
thee.” 

With that the Tribune, placing his dagger on the 
ground, while he cautiously guarded it with his foot, 
bound up the wounded limb, for which condescension 
Rodolph gave him short thanks; resumed his weapon 
and lamp; closed the door; drew over it the long, 
heavy bolt without, and returned to his couch, deeply 
and indignantly musing over the treason he had so 
fortunately escaped. 

At the first gray streak of dawn he went out of the 
great door of the church, called the sentry, who was one 
of his own guard, and bade him privately, and now ere 
the world was astir, convey the prisoner to one of the 
private dungeons of the Capitol. “ Be silent,” said he: 
“ utter not a word of this to any o^e ; be obedient, and 
thou shalt be promoted. This done, find out the coun- 
cillor, Pandulfo di Guido, and bid him seek me here 
ere the crowd assemble.” 

He then, making the sentinel doff his heavy shoes of 
iron, led him across the church, resigned Rodolph to 
his care, saw them depart, and in a few minutes after- 
wards his voice was heard by the inmates of the neigh- 
boring chapel; and he was soon surrounded by his 
train. 

He was already standing on the floor, wrapped in a 
large gown lined with furs; and his piercing eye scanned 
carefully the face of each man that approached. Two of 
the barons of the Prangipani family exhibited some 
tokens of confusion and embarrassment, from which 


312 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


they speedily recovered at the frank salutation of the 
Tribune. 

But all the art of Savelli could not prevent his 
features from betraying to the most indifferent eye the 
terror of. his soul; and when he felt the penetrating 
gaze of Rienzi upon him, he trembled in every joint. 
Eienzi alone did not, however, seem to notice his dis- 
order; and when Vico di Scotto, an old knight, from 
whose hands he received his sword, asked him how he 
had passed the night, he replied cheerfully, — 

“Well, well, — my brave friend! Over a maiden 
knight some good angel always watches. Signor Luca 
di Savelli, I fear you have slept but ill: you seem pale. 
No matter! — our banquet to-day will soon brighten the 
current of your gay blood.” 

“ Blood, Tribune! ” said Di Scotto, who was innocent 
of the plot ; “ thou sayest blood, and lo ! on the floor 
are large gouts of it not yet dry.” 

“Now, out on thee, old hero, for betraying my 
awkwardness! I pricked myself with my own dagger 
in unrobing. Thank Heaven, it hath no poison in its 
blade!” The Frangipani exchanged looks; Luca di 
Savelli clung to a column for support, and the rest of 
the attendants seemed grave and surprised. 

“ Think not of it, my masters,” said Bienzi: “ it is a 
good omen and a true prophecy. It implies that he 
who girds on his sword for the good of the state must 
be ready to spill his blood for it: that am I. No more 
of this, — a mere scratch: it gave more blood than I 
recked of from so slight a puncture, and saves the leech 
the trouble of the lancet. How brightly breaks the 
day! We must prepare to meet our fellow-citizens, — 
they will be here anon. Ha, my Pandulfo, welcome! 
thou, my old friend, shalt buckle on this mantle!” 


RIENZI. THE LA.ST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


313 


And while Pandulfo was engaged in the task, the 
Tribune whispered a few words in his ear, which, by 
the smile on his countenance, seemed to the attendants 
one of the familiar jests with which Pienzi distin- 
guished his intercourse with his more confidential 
intimates. 


314 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTER VI. 

The Celebrated Citation. 

The bell of the great Lateran church sounded shrill 
and loud, as the mighty multitude, greater even than 
that of the preceding night, swept on. The appointed 
officers made way with difficulty for the barons and 
ambassadors; and scarcely were those noble visitors 
admitted ere the crowd closed in their ranks, poured 
headlong into the church, and took the way to the 
chapel of Boniface VIII. There, filling every cranny 
and blocking up the entrance, the more fortunate of the 
press beheld the Tribune surrounded by the splendid 
court his genius had collected and his fortune had 
subdued. At length, as the solemn and holy music 
began to swell through the edifice, preluding the cele- 
bration of the mass, the Tribune stepped forth, and the 
hush of the music was increased by the universal and 
dead silence of the audience. His height, his air, his 
countenance, were such as always command the atten- 
tion of crowds; and at this time they received every 
adjunct from the interest of the occasion, and that 
peculiar look of intent yet suppressed fervor which 
is, perhaps, the sole gift of the eloquent that Nature 
alone can give. 

“Be it known,” said he, slowly and deliberately, 
“in virtue of that authority, power, and jurisdiction 
which the Roman people, in general parliament, have 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 315 

assigned to us, and which the sovereign pontiff hath 
confirmed, that we, not ungrateful of the gift and grace 
of the Holy Spirit, — whose soldier we now are , — nor 
of the favor of the Eoman people, declare that Eome, 
capital of the world, and base of the Christian Church; 
and that every City, State, and People of Italy are 
henceforth free. By that freedom, and in the same 
consecrated authority, we proclaim that the election, 
jurisdiction, and monarchy of the Eoman empire apper- 
tain to Eome and Eome’s people, and the whole of 
Italy. We cite, then, and summon personally, the 
illustrious princes, Louis Duke of Bavaria, and Charles 
King of Bohemia, who would style themselves Emperors 
of Italy, to appear before us, or the other magistrates of 
Eome, to plead and to prove their claim, between this 
day and the Day of Pentecost. ,We cite also, and 
within the same term, the Duke of Saxony, the Prince 
of Brandenburg, and whosoever else, potentate, prince, 
or prelate, asserts the right of Elector to the imperial 
throne, — a right that, we find it chronicled from ancient 
and immemorial time, appertaineth only to the Eoman 
people, — and this, in vindication of our civil liberties, 
without derogation of the spiritual power of the Church , 
the pontiff, and the sacred college.^ Herald, proclaim 

1 “ II tutto senza derogare all’ autoritk della Chiesa, del Papa e 
del Sacro Collegio.” So concludes this extraordinary citation, this 
bold and wonderful assertion of the classic independence of Italy, 
in the most feudal time of the fourteenth century. The anonymous 
biographer of Rienzi declares that the Tribune cited also the pope 
and the cardinals to reside in Rome. De Sade powerfully and in- 
controvertibly refutes this addition to the daring or the extrava- 
gance of Rienzi. Gibbon, however, who has rendered the rest of 
the citation in terms more abrupt and discourteous than he was 
warranted by any authority, copies the biographer’s blunder, and 
sneers at De Sade as using arguments “ rather of decency than of 


316 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


the citation, at the greater and more formal length, as 
written and intrusted to your hands, without the 
Lateran. ” 

As Rienzi concluded this bold proclamation of the 
liberties of Italy, the Tuscan ambassadors, and those of 
some other of the free states, murmured low approba- 
tion. The ambassadors of those states that affected the 
party of the emperor looked at each other in silent 
amaze and consternation. The Roman barons remained 
with mute lips and downcast eyes ; only over the aged 
face of Stephen Colonna settled a smile, half of scorn, 
half of exultation. But the great mass of the citizens 
were caught by words that opened so grand a prospect 

weight.” Without wearying the reader with all the arguments of 
the learned Abbe, it may be sufficient to give the first two. 

1st. All the other contemporaneous historians that have treated 
of this event, G. Villani, Hocsemius, the Vatican MSS., and other 
chroniclers, relating the citation of the emperor and electors, say 
nothing of that of the pope and cardinals ; and the pope (Clement 
VI.), in his subsequent accusations of Rienzi, while very bitter 
against his citation of the emperor, is wholly silent on what would 
have been to the pontiff the much greater offence of citing himself 
and the cardinals. 

2d. The literal act of this citation, as published formally in the 
Lateran, is extant in Hocsemius (whence is borrowed, though not 
in all its length, the speech in the text of our present tale) ; and in 
this document the pope and his cardinals are not named in the 
summons. 

Gibbon’s whole account of Rienzi is superficial and unfair. To 
the cold and sneering scepticism which so often deforms the 
gigantic work of that great writer, allowing nothing for that sin- 
cere and urgent enthusiasm which, whether of liberty or religion, 
is the most common parent of daring action, the great Roman 
seems but an ambitious and fantastic madman. In Gibbon’s hands 
what would Cromwell have been ? Avhat Vanel what Hampden 1 
The pedant Julian, with his dirty person and pompous affectation, 
was Gibbon’s ideal of a great man. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 317 

as the emancipation of all Italy; and their reverence 
of the Tribune’s power and fortune was almost that due 
to a supernatural being, so that they did not pause to 
calculate the means which were to correspond with the 
boast. 

While his eye roved over the crowd, the gorgeous 
assemblage near him, the devoted throng beyond; as 
on his ear boomed the murmur of thousands and ten 
thousands, in the space without, from before the palace 
of Constantine (palace now his own!), sworn to devote 
life and fortune to his cause ; in the flush of prosperity 
that yet had known no check; in the zenith of power 
as yet unconscious of reverse, — the heart of the Tribune 
swelled proudly: visions of mighty fame and limitless 
dominion — fame and dominion once his beloved 
E/ome’s, and by him to be restored — rushed before his 
intoxicated gaze; and in the delirious and passionate 
aspirations of the moment he turned his sword alter- 
nately to the three quarters of the then known globe, 
and said in an abstracted voice, as a man in a dream, 
“ In the right of the Eoman people this too is mine 1 ” ^ 

Low though the voice, the wild boast was heard by 
all around as distinctly as if borne to them in thunder. 
And vain it were to describe the various sensations it 
excited; the extravagance would have moved the deri- 
sion of his foes, the grief of his friends, but for the 
manner of the speaker, which, solemn and command- 
ing, hushed for the moment even reason and hatred 
themselves in awe; afterwards remembered and re- 
peated, void of the spell they had borrowed from the 
utterer, the words met the cold condemnation of the 
well-judging; but at that moment all things seemed 
possible to the hero of the people. He spoke as one 
1 “ Questo e mio.” 


318 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


inspired, — they trembled and believed ; and, as rapt 
from the spectacle, he stood a moment silent, his arm 
still extended, his dark dilating eye fixed upon space, 
his lip parted, his proud head towering and erect 
above the herd, his own enthusiasm kindled that of 
the more humble and distant spectators; and there was 
a deep murmur begun by one, echoed by the rest, “ The 
Lord is with Italy and Rienzi ! ” 

The Tribune turned; he saw the pope’s vicar aston- 
ished, bewildered, rising to speak. His sense and 
foresight returned to him at once, and, resolved to 
drown the dangerous disavowal of the papal authority 
for this hardihood, which was ready to burst from 
Raimond’s lips, he motioned quickly to the musicians, 
and the solemn and ringing chant of the sacred cere- 
mony prevented the Bishop of Orvietto all occasion of 
self-exoneration or reply. 

The moment the ceremony was over, Rienzi touched 
the bishop, and whispered, “ We will explain this to 
your liking. You feast with us at the Lateran. Your 
arm.” Hor did he leave the good bishop’s arm, nor 
trust him to other companionship, until to the stormy 
sound of horn and trumpet, drum and cymbal, and 
amidst such a concourse as might have hailed on the 
same spot the legendary baptism of Constantine, the 
Tribune and his nobles entered the great gates of 
the Lateran, then the palace of the world. 

Thus ended that remarkable ceremony and that proud 
challenge of the Northern Powers, in behalf of the 
Italian liberties, which, had it been afterwards success- 
ful, would have been deemed a sublime daring; which, 
unsuccessful, has been construed by the vulgar into a 
frantic insolence; but which, calmly considering all 
the circumstances that urged on the Tribune and all 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TEIBUNES. 319 

the power that surrounded him, was not, perhaps, alto- 
gether so imprudent as it seemed. And, even accepting 
that imprudence in the extremest sense, by the more 
penetrating judge of the higher order of character it will 
probably be considered as the magnificent folly of a bold 
nature, excited at once by position and prosperity, by 
religious credulities, by patriotic aspirings, by scholastic 
visions too suddenly transferred from reverie to action, 
beyond that wise and earthward policy which sharpens 
the weapon ere it casts the gauntlet. 


V 


320 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTER VII. 

The Festival. 

The festival of that day was far the most sumptuous 
hitherto known. The hint of Cecco del Vecchio, which 
so well depicted the character of his fellow-citizens, as 
yet it exists, though not to such excess, in their love of 
holiday pomp and gorgeous show, was not lost upon 
Rienzi. One instance of the universal banqueting 
(intended, indeed, rather for the people than the higher 
ranks) may illustrate the more than royal profusion that 
prevailed. From morn till eve, streams of wine flowed 
like a fountain from the nostrils of the horse of the 
great equestrian statue of Constantine. The mighty 
halls of the Lateran palace, open to all ranks, were 
prodigally spread; and the games, sports, and buffoon- 
eries of the time were in ample requisition. Apart, 
the Tribunessa, as Hina was rather unclassically enti- 
tled, entertained the dames of Rome ; while the Tribune 
had so effectually silenced or conciliated Raimond that 
the good bishop shared his peculiar table, — the only 
one admitted to that honor. As the eye ranged each 
saloon and hall , it beheld the space lined with all the 
nobility and knighthood, the wealth and strength, the 
learning and the beauty, of the Italian metropolis; 
mingled with ambassadors and noble strangers even 
from beyond the Alps ; ^ — envoys not only of the free 

1 The simple and credulous biographer of Rienzi declares his 
fame to have reached the ears of the Soldan of Babylon. 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 321 

states that had welcomed the rise of the Tribune, hut 
of the high-horn and haughty tyrants who had first 
derided his arrogance, and now cringed to his power. 
There were not only the ambassadors of Florence, of 
Sienna, of Arezzo (which last subjected its government 
to the Tribune), of Todi, of Spoleto, and of countless 
other lesser towns and states, but of the dark and ter- 
rible Visconti, Prince of Milan; of Ohizzo of Ferrara, 
and the tyrant rulers of Verona and Bologna; even the 
proud and sagacious Malatesta, Lord of Bimini, whose 
arm afterwards broke for a while the power of Montreal, 
at the head of his Great Company, had deputed his 
representative in his most honored noble. John di 
Vico, the worst and most malignant despot of his day, 
who had sternly defied the alms of the Tribune, now 
subdued and humbled, was there in person; and the 
ambassadors of Hungary and of Naples mingled with 
those of Bavaria and of Bohemia, whose sovereigns 
that day had been cited to the Boman Judgment Court. 
The nodding of plumes, the glitter of jewels and cloth- 
of-gold, the rustling of silks and jingle of golden spurs, 
the waving of banners from the roof, the sounds of 
minstrelsy from the galleries above, all presented a 
picture of such power and state — a court and chivalry 
of such show — ■ as the greatest of the feudal kings might 
have beheld with a sparkling eye and a swelling heart. 
But at that moment the cause and lord of all that splen- 
dor, recovered from his late exhilaration, sat moody and 
abstracted, remembering with a thoughtful brow the 
adventure of the past night, and sensible that amongst 
his gaudiest revellers lurked his intended murderers. 
Amidst the swell of the minstrelsy and the pomp of the 
crowd, he felt that treason scowled beside him; and the 
image of the skeleton obtruding, as of old, its grim 
VOL. I. — 21 


322 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


thought of death upon the feast, darkened the ruby of 
the wine, and chilled the glitter of the scene. 

It was while the feast was loudest that Eienzi’s page 
was seen gliding through the banquet, and whispering 
several of the nobles; each bowed low, but changed 
color as he received the message. 

“My Lord Savelli,” said Orsini, himself trembling, 
“ bear yourself more bravely. This must be meant in 
honor, not revenge. I suppose your summons corre- 
sponds with mine.” 

“ He — he — asks — asks — me to supper at the Capi- 
tol; a fri — endly meeting (pest on his friendship!) 
after the noise of the day.” 

“ The words addressed also to me ! ” said Orsini , 
turning to one of the Frangipani. 

Those who received the summons soon broke from 
the feast, and collected in a group, eagerly conferring. 
Some were for flight, but flight was confession; their 
number, rank, long and consecrated impunity, reassured 
them, and they resolved to obey. The old Colonna, 
the sole innocent baron of the invited guests, was also 
the only one who refused the invitation. “ Tush ! ” 
said he, peevishly; “here is feasting enough for one 
day ! Tell the Tribune that ere he sups I hope to be 
asleep. Gray hairs cannot encounter all this fever of 
festivity. ” 

As Eienzi rose to depart, which he did early, for the 
banquet took place while yet morning, Eaimond, eager 
to escape and confer with some of his spiritual friends 
as to the report he should make to the pontiff, was 
beginning his expressions of farewell, when the merci- 
less Tribune said to him gravely, — 

“ My lord , we want you on urgent business at the 
Capitol. A prisoner, a trial, — perhaps,” he added, 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 323 


with his portentous and prophetic frown, “ an execution 
waits us. Come ! ” 

“ Verily, Tribune,” stammered the good bishop, “ this 
is a strange time for execution ! ” 

“ Last night was a time yet more strange. Come! ” 

There was something in the way in which the final 
word was pronounced, that Kaimond could not resist. 
He sighed, muttered, twitched his robes, and followed 
the Tribune. As he passed through the halls, the com- 
pany rose on all sides. Kienzi repaid their salutations 
with smiles and whispers of frank courtesy and winning 
address. Young as he yet was, and of a handsome and 
noble presence, that took every advantage from splendid 
attire, and yet more from an appearance of intellectual 
command in his brow and eye, which the less cultivated 
signors of that dark age necessarily wanted, — he glit- 
tered through the court as one worthy to form, and fitted 
to preside over, it; and his supposed descent from the 
Teuton emperor, which, since his greatness, was univer- 
sally bruited and believed abroad, seemed undeniably 
visible to the foreign lords in the majesty of his mien 
and the easy blandness of his address. 

“My lord prefect,” said he, to a dark and sullen 
personage in black velvet, the powerful and arrogant 
John di Vico, prefect of Rome, “ we are rejoiced to 
find so noble a guest at Rome: we must repay the 
courtesy by surprising you in your own palace erelong; 
nor will you, signor,” as he turned to the envoy from 
Tivoli, “refuse us a shelter amidst your groves and 
waterfalls ere the vintage be gathered. Methinks 
Rome, united with sweet Tivoli, grows reconciled to 
the Muses. Your suit is carried. Master Venoni: ,the 
council recognizes its justice ; but I reserved the news 
for this holiday, — you do not blame me, I trust.” 


324 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


This was whispered, with a half-affectionate frankness, 
to a worthy citizen, who, finding himself amidst so 
many of the great, would have shrunk from the notice 
of the Tribune ; hut it was the policy of Eifenzi to pay 
an especial and marked attention to those engaged in 
commercial pursuits. As, after tarrying a moment or 
two with the merchant, he passed on, the tall person of 
the old Colonna caught his eye. 

“ Signor,” said he, with a profound inclination of his 
head, but with a slight emphasis of tone, “ you will not 
fail us this evening ? ” 

“ Tribune — ” began the Colonna. 

“We receive no excuse,” interrupted the Tribune, 
hastily, and passed on. 

He halted for a few moments before a small group of 
men plainly attired, who were watching him with 
intense interest; for they, too, were scholars, and in 
Eienzi’s rise they saw another evidence of that won- 
derful and sudden power which intellect had begun 
to assume over brute force. With these, as if abruptly 
mingled with congenial spirits, the Tribune relaxed all 
the gravity of his brow. Happier, perhaps, his living 
career — more unequivocal his posthumous renown — 
had his objects as his tastes been theirs! 

“ Ah, carissime ! ” said he to one , whose arm he drew 
within his own, “ and how proceeds thy interpretation 
of the old marbles ? — half unravelled ? I rejoice to hear 
it! Confer with me as of old, I pray thee. To-morrow 
— no, nor the day after, but next week — we will have 
a tranquil evening. Dear poet, your ode transported me 
to the days of Horace; yet, methinks, we do wrong to 
reject the vernacular for the Latin. You shake your 
head? Well, Petrarch thinks with you: his great epic 
moves with the stride of a giant; so I hear from his 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 325 


friend and envoy, — and here he is. My Lselius, is 
that not your name with Petrarch? How shall I 
express my delight at his comforting, his inspiring 
letter? Alas! he overrates not my intentions, but my 
power. Of this hereafter.” 

A slight shade darkened the Tribune’s brow at these 
words; hut moving on, a long line of nobles and princes 
on either side, he regained his self-possession, and the 
dignity he had dropped with his former equals. Thus 
he passed through the crowd, and gradually disappeared. 

" He hears him bravely,” said one, as the revellers 
reseated themselves. “ Noticed you the we, — the style 
royal ? ” 

But it must be owned that he lords it well,” said 
the ambassador of the Visconti ; “ less pride would be 
cringing to his haughty court.” 

“ Why,” said a professor of Bologna, — “ why is the 
Tribune called proud ? I see no pride in him. ” 

“ Nor I,” said a wealthy jeweller. 

While these and yet more contradictory comments 
followed the exit of the Tribune, he passed into the 
saloon, where Nina presided; and here his fair person and 
silver tongue (" Suavis colorataeque sententise,” accord- 
ing to the description of Petrarch) won him a more gen- 
eral favor with the matrons than he experienced with 
their lords, and not a little contrasted the formal and ner- 
vous compliments of the good bishop, who served him on 
such occasions with an excellent foil. 

But as soon as these ceremonies were done, and Pienzi 
mounted his horse, his manner changed at once into a 
stern and ominous severity. 

“ Vicar,” said be, abruptly, to the bishop, “ we might 
well need your presence. Learn that at the Capitol 
now sits the Council in judgment upon an assassin. 


326 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


Last night, but for Heaven’s mercy, I should have 
fallen a victim to a hireling’s dagger. Knew you aught 
of this ? ” 

And he turned so sharply on the bishop that the poor 
canonist nearly dropped from his horse in surprise and 
terror. 

“ I! ” said he. 

E-ienzi smiled. “Ko,good my lord bishop! I see 
you are of no murderer’s mould. But to continue: 
that I might not appear to act in mine^ own cause, I 
ordered the prisoner to be tried in my absence! In 
his trial (you marked the letter brought me at our 
banquet 1) — ” 

“ Ay, and you changed color.” 

“Well I might: in his trial, I say, he has confessed 
that nine of the loftiest lords of Borne were his instiga- 
tors. TAe^ sup with me to-night ! — Vicar, forwards!” 


BOOK V. 

THE CRISIS. 

Questo ha acceso ’1 fnoco e la fiamma laquale non la par spo- 
tegnere. — Vita di Cola di Rienzi, lib. i. cap. 29. 

He has kindled fire and flames which he will not be able to ex- 
tinguish. — Life of Cola di Rienzi. 


VOL. II. — 1 



EIENZI, 

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


BOOK V. — CHAPTEE 1. 

The Judgment of the Tribune. 

The brief words of the Tribune to Stephen Colonna, 
though they sharpened the rage of the proud old noble, 
were such as he did not, on reflection, deem it prudent 
to disobey. Accordingly, at the appointed hour, he 
found himself in one of the halls of the Capitol, with a 
gallant party of his peers. Rienzi received them with 
more than his usual graciousness. 

They sat down to the splendid board in secret uneasi- 
ness and alarm, as they saw that, with the exception of 
Stephen Colonna, none, save the conspirators, had been 
invited to the banquet. Rienzi, regardless of their 
silence and abstraction, was more than usually gay, — 
the old Colonna more than usually sullen. 

“We fear we have but ill-pleased , you, my Lord 
Colonna, by our summons. Once, methinks, we might 
more easily provoke you to a smile.” 

“ Situations are changed, Tribune, since you were my 
guest. ” 

“ Why, scarcely so. I have risen, but you have not 
fallen. Ye walk the streets day and night in security 


4 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


and peace ; your lives are safe from the robber, and your 
palaces no longer need bars and battlements to shield you 
from your fellow-citizens. I have risen, but we all have 
risen, — from barbarous disorder into civilized life ! My 
Lord Gianni Colonna, whom we have made captain over 
Campagna, you will not refuse a cup to the Buono Stato, 
nor think we mistrust your valor, when we say that we 
rejoice Borne hath no enemies to attest your generalship. ” 
“ Methinks, ” quoth the old Colonna, bluntly, “ we 
shall have enemies enough from Bohemia and Bavaria, 
ere the next harvest be green. ” 

“ And if so, ” replied the Tribune, calmly, “ foreign 
foes are better than civil strife.” 

“ Ay, if we have money in the treasury ; which is but 
little likely, if we have many more such holidays.” 

“You are ungracious, my lord,” said the Tribune; 
“ and, besides, you are more uncomplimentary to Borne 
than to ourselves. What citizen would not part with 
gold to buy fame and liberty ? ” 

“ I know very few in Borne that would,” answered the 
baron. “ But tell me. Tribune, you who are a notable 
casuist, which is the best for a state, — that its governor 
should be over-thrifty or over-lavish ? ” 

“ I refer the question to my friend, Luca di Savelli, ” 
replied Bienzi. “ He is a grand philosopher, and I wot 
well could explain a much knottier riddle, which we will 
presently submit to his acumen. ” 

The barons, who had been much embarrassed by the 
bold speech of the old Colonna, all turned their eyes to 
Savelli, who answered with more composure than was 
anticipated, — 

“ The question admits a double reply. He who is 
horn a ruler, and maintains a foreign army, governing 
by fear, should be penurious. He who is made ruler, 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 5 

who courts the people, and would reign by love, must 
win their affection by generosity, and dazzle their fancies 
by pomp. Such, I believe, is the usual maxim in Italy, 
which is rife in all experience of state wisdom.” 

The barons unanimously applauded the discreet reply 
of Savelli, excepting only the old Colonna. 

“Yet pardon me, Tribune,” said Stephen, “if I de- 
part from the courtier-like decision of our friend, and 
opine, though with all due respect, that even a friar’s 
coarse serge, ^ the parade of humility, would better be- 
come thee, than this gaudy pomp, the parade of pride ! ” 
So saying, he touched the large, loose sleeve, fringed 
with gold, of the Tribune’s purple robe. 

“Hush, father! ” said Gianni, Colonna ’s son, coloring 
at the unprovoked rudeness and dangerous candor of the 
veteran. 

“ Hay, it matters not,” said the Tribune, with affected 
indifference, though his lip quivered, and his eye shot 
fire ; and then, after a pause, he resumed, with an awful 
smile : “ If the Colonna love the serge of the friar, he 
may see enough of it ere we part. And now, my Lord 
Savelli, for my question, which I pray you listen to; it 
demands all your wit. Is it best for a state’s ruler to he 
over-forgiving or over-just? Take breath to answer: 
you look faint, you grow pale, you tremble, — you cover 
your face ! Traitor and assassin, your conscience betrays 
you! My lords, relieve your accomplice, and take up 
the answer.” 

“ Nay, if we are discovered, ” said the Orsini, rising in 
despair, “ we will not fall unavenged. Hie, tyrant ! ” 

^ " Vestimenta da Bizoco,” was the phrase used hy Colonna, — 
a phrase borrowed from certain heretics {hizocchi) who affected ex- 
treme>austerity ; afterwards the word passed into a proverb. — See 
the comments of Zefirino Re in “ Vita di Cola di Rienzi.” 


6 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

He rushed to the place where Kienzi stood, — for the 
Tribune also rose, — and made a thrust at his breast with 
his dagger; the steel pierced the purple robe, yet glanced 
harmlessly away, — and the Tribune regarded the disap- 
pointed murderer with a scornful smile. 

“ Till yesternight, I never dreamt that under the robe- 
of state I should need the secret corselet,” said he. 
“ My lords, you have taught me a dark lesson, and I 
thank ye.” 

So saying, he clapped his hands, and suddenly the 
folding-doors at the end of the hall flew open, and dis- 
covered the saloon of the council hung with silk of a 
blood-red, relieved by rays of white, — the emblem of 
crime and death. At a long table sat the councillors in 
their robes ; at the bar stood a ruffian form, which the 
banqueters too well recognized. 

“ Bid Bodolph of Saxony approach ! ” said the Tribune. 

And led by two guards, the robber entered the hall. 

“Wretch, you then betrayed us!” said one of the 
Frangipani. 

“ Kodolph of Saxony goes ever to the highest bidder, ” 
returned the miscreant, with a horrid grin. “ You gave 
me gold, and I would have slain your foe: your foe 
defeated me; he gives me life, and life is a greater 
boon than gold! ” 

“Ye confess your crime, my lords! Silent! dumb? 
Where is your wit, Savelli % Where your pride, Einaldo 
di Orsini? Gianni Colonna, is your chivalry come to 
this? 

“ Oh ! ” continued Eienzi, with deep and passionate 
bitterness, — “ oh, my lords, will nothing conciliate you, 
— not to me, but to Rome ? What hath been my sin 
against you and yours? Disbanded ruffians (such as 
your accuser), dismantled fortresses, impartial law, — what 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


7 


man, in all the wild revolutions of Italy, sprung from 
the people, ever yielded less to their license? Not 
a coin of your coffers touched by wanton power, not a 
hair of your heads harmed by private revenge! You, 
Gianni Colonna, loaded with honors, intrusted with 
command; you, Alphonso di Frangipani, endowed with 
new principalities, — did the Tribune remember one 
insult he received from you as the plebeian? You 
accuse my pride: was it my fault that ye cringed and 
fawned upon my power, — flattery on your lips, poison 
at your hearts? No, I have not offended you; let the 
world know that in me you aimed at liberty, justice, 
law, order, the restored grandeur, the renovated rights 
of Rome! At these, the Abstract and the Immortal, 
not at this frail form, ye struck: by the divinity of 
these ye are defeated ; for the outraged majesty of these, 
criminals and victims, ye must die! ” 

With these words, uttered with the tone and air that 
would have become the loftiest spirit of the ancient city, 
Rienzi, with a majestic step, swept from the chamber 
into the Hall of Council.^ 

All that night the conspirators remained within that 
room, the doors locked and guarded ; the banquet unre- 
moved, and its splendor strangely contrasting the mood of 
the guests. 

The utter prostration and despair of these dastard 
criminals — so unlike the knightly nobles of France and 
England — has been painted by the historian in odious 
and withering colors. The old Colonna alone sustained 

1 The guilt of the barons in their designed assassination of 
Rienzi, though hastily slurred over by Gibbon and other modern 
writers, is clearly attested by Muratori, the Bolognese Chronicle, 
etc. — They even confessed the crime. (See Cron. Estens. Muratori 
tom. xviii. p. 442.) 


8 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


his impetuous and imperious character. He strode to and 
fro the room like a lion in his cage, uttering loud threats 
of resentment and defiance ; and beating at the door with 
his clenched hands, demanding egress and proclaiming 
the vengeance of the pontiff. 

The dawn came, slow and gray, upon that agonized 
assembly; and just as the last star faded from the 
melancholy horizon, and by the wan and comfortless 
heaven they regarded each other’s faces, almost spectral 
with anxiety and fear, the great bell of the Capitol 
sounded the notes in which they well recognized the 
chime of death! It was then that the door opened, 
and a drear and gloomy procession of cordeliers, one 
to each baron, entered the apartment! At that spec- 
tacle, we are told, the terror of the conspirators was so 
great that it froze up the very power of speech.^ The 
greater part at length, deeming all hope over, resigned 
themselves to their ghostly confessors. But when the 
friar appointed to Stephen approached that passionate 
old man, he waved his hand impatiently, and said, 
“ Tease me not ! tease me not ! ” 

Nay, son, prepare for the awful hour. ” 

“ Son, indeed ! ” quoth the baron. “ I am old enough 
to be thy grandsire; and for the rest, tell him who 
sent thee that I neither am prepared for death nor 
will prepare ! I have made up my mind to live these 
twenty years, and longer too, — if I catch not my death 
with the cold of this accursed night.” 

Just at that moment a cry that almost seemed to 
rend the Capitol asunder was heard, as, with one voice, 
the multitude below yelled forth, — 

“ Death to the conspirators ! — death ! death ! ” 

While this was the scene in that hall, the Tribune 
1 “ Diventarono si gelati, che nou poteano favellare.” 


RIEN2I, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 9 

issued from his chamber, in which he had been closeted 
with his wife and sister. The noble spirit of the one, the 
tears and grief of the other (who saw at one fell stroke 
perish the house of her betrothed), had not worked 
without effect upon a temper stern and just indeed, 
but naturally averse from blood, and a heart capable of 
the loftiest species of revenge. 

He entered the council, still sitting, with a calm brow 
and even a cheerful eye. 

“ Pandulfo di Guido, ” he said, turning to that citizen, 
“you are right; you spoke as a wise man and a patriot 
when you said that to cut off with one blow, however 
merited, the noblest heads of Rome, would endanger 
the state, sully our purple with an indelible stain, and 
unite the nobility of Italy against us.” 

“ Such, Tribune, was my argument, though the council 
have decided otherwise. ” 

“ Hearken to the shouts of the populace ; you can- 
not appease their honest warmth,” said the demagogue 
Baroncelli. 

Many of the council murmured applause. 

“Friends,” said the Tribune, with a solemn and 
earnest aspect, ' “ let not posterity say that liberty loves 
blood; let us for once adopt the example and imitate 
the mercy of our great Redeemer! We have triumphed, 
— let us forbear ; we are saved, — let us forgive ! ” 

The speech of the Tribune was supported by Pandulfo, 
and others of the more mild and moderate policy; 
and after a short but animated discussion the influence 
of Rienzi prevailed, and the sentence of death was 
revoked, but by a small majority. 

“ And now, ” said Rienzi, “ let us be more than just ; 
let us be generous. Speak, and boldly! Do any of 
ye think that I have been over-hard, over-haughty with 


10 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


these stubborn spirits? I read your answer in your 
brows ! I have .! Do any of ye think this error of 
mine may have stirred them to their dark revenge ? Do 
any of you deem that they partake, as we do, of human 
nature, — that they are sensible to kindness ; that they 
are softened by generosity; that they can be tamed and 
disarmed by such vengeance as is dictated to noble foes 
by Christian laws ? ” 

“ I think, ” said Pandulfo, after a pause, “ that it will 
not be in human nature if the men you pardon, thus 
offending and thus convicted, again attempt your life ! ” 

“ Methinks,” said Kienzi, “ we must do even more than 
pardon. The first great Caesar, when he did not crush a 
foe, strove to convert him to a friend — ” 

“ And perished by the attempt, ” said Baroncelli, 
abruptly. 

Kienzi started, and changed color. 

“ If you would save these wretched prisoners, better 
not wait till the fury of the mob become ungovernable, ” 
whispered Pandulfo. 

The Tribune roused himself from his reverie. 

“ Pandulfo, ” said he, in the same tone, “ my heart 
misgives me : the brood of serpents are in my hand, — 
I do not strangle them; they may sting me to death, in 
return for my mercy, — it is their instinct! No matter; 
it shall not be said that the Poman Tribune bought with 
so many lives his own safety ; nor shall it be written upon 
my gravestone, ‘ Here lies the coward, who did not dare 
forgive. ’ What, ho I there, officers, unclose the doors ! 
My masters, let us acquaint the prisoners with their 
sentence. ” 

With that, Rienzi seated himself on the chair of state, 
at the head of the table ; and the sun, now risen, cast its 
rays over the blood-red walls, in which the barons, 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 11 

marshalled in order into the chamber, thought to read 
their fate. 

“ My lords, ” said the Tribune, “ ye have offended the 
laws of God and man ; hut God teaches man the quality 
of mercy. Learn, at last, that I hear a charmed life. 
Nor is he whom for high purposes Heaven hath raised 
from the cottage to the popular throne, without invisible 
aid and spiritual protection. If hereditary monarchs are 
deemed sacred, how much more one in whose power the 
divine hand hath writ its witness ! Yes, over him who 
lives hut for his country, whose greatness is his country’s 
gift, whose life is his country’s liberty, watch the souls 
of the just, and the unsleeping eyes of the sword ed 
seraphim ! Taught by your late failure and your present 
peril, hid your anger against me cease ; respect the laws, 
revere the freedom of your city, and think that no state 
presents a nobler spectacle than men horn as ye are, — a 
patrician and illustrious order, — using your power to 
protect your city, your wealth to nurture its arts, your 
chivalry to protect its laws ! Take back your swords, — 
and the first man who strikes against the liberties of 
Home, let him be your victim, even though that victim 
be the Tribune. Your cause has been tried, — your 
sentence is pronounced. Henew your oath to forbear all 
hostility, private or public, against the government and 
the magistrates of Eome, and ye are pardoned, — ye are 
free! ” 

Amazed, bewildered, the barons mechanically bent the 
knee; the friars who had received their confessions 
administered the appointed oath; and while with white 
lips they muttered the solemn words, they heard below 
the roar of the multitude for their blood. 

The ceremony ended, the Tribune passed into the 
banquet-hall, which conducted to a balcony whence he 


12 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


was accustomed to address the people; and never, per- 
haps, was his wonderful mastery over the passions of an 
audience (“ ad persuadendum efficax dictator, quoque 
dulcis ac lepidus ” more greatly needed or more emi- 
nently shown than on that day; for the fury of the 
people was at its height, and it was long ere he succeeded 
in turning it aside. Before he concluded, however, 
every wave of the wild sea lay hushed. The orator 
lived to stand on the same spot, to plead for a life nobler 
than those he now saved, and to plead unheard and in 
vain! 

As soon as the Tribune saw the favorable moment had 
arrived, the barons were admitted into the balcony. 
In the presence of the breathless thousands, they 
solemnly pledged themselves to protect the Good Estate. 
And thus the morning which seemed to dawn upon 
their execution witnessed their reconciliation with the 
people. 

The crowd dispersed, — the majority soothed and 
pleased, the more sagacious vexed and dissatisfied. 

“ He has but increased the smoke and the flame which 
he was not able to extinguish,” growled Cecco del 
Vecchio; and the smith’s appropriate saying passed into 
a proverb and a prophecy. 

Meanwhile the Tribune, conscious at least that he 
had taken the more generous course, broke up the 
council, and retired to the chamber where Nina and his 
sister waited him. These beautiful young women had 
conceived for each other the tenderest affection. And 
their differing characters, both of mind and feature, 
seemed by contrast to heighten the charms of both ; as in 
a skilful jewellery, the pearl and diamond borrow beauty 
from each other. 


^ Petrarch of Rienzi. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 13 

And as Irene now turned her pale countenance and 
streaming eyes from the bosom to which she had clung 
for support, — the timid sister, anxious, doubtful, wist- 
ful; the proud wife, sanguine and assured, as if never 
diffident of the intentions nor of the power of her 
Rienzi, — the contrast would have furnished to a painter 
no unworthy incarnation of the love that hopeth, and the 
love that feareth, all things. 

“ Be cheered, my sweet sister, ” said the Tribune, first 
caught by Irene’s imploring look; “not a hair on the 
heads of those who boast the name of him thou lovest so 
well is injured. Thank Heaven,” as his sister, with a 
low cry, rushed into his arms, “ that it was against my 
life they conspired ! Had it been another Roman’s, 
mercy might have been a crime! Dearest, may Adrian 
love thee half as well as I ; and yet, my sister and my 
child, none can know thy soft soul like him who watched 
over it since its first blossom expanded to the sun. My 
poor brother! had he lived, your counsel had been his; 
and methinks his gentle spirit often whispers away the 
sternness which otherwise would harden over mine. 
Nina, my queen, my inspirer, my monitor, ever thus 
let thy heart, masculine in my distress, be woman’s in 
my power; and be to me, with Irene, upon earth what 
my brother is in heaven ! ” 

The Tribune, exhausted by the trials of the night, 
retired for a few hours to rest; and as Nina, encircling 
him within her arms, watched over his noble counte- 
nance, — care hushed, ambition laid at rest, — its serenity 
had something almost of sublime. And tears of that 
delicious pride which woman sheds for the hero of her 
dreams stood heavy in the wife’s eyes, as she rejoiced 
more in the deep stillness of her heart, at the preroga- 
tive, alone hers, of sharing his solitary hours, than in 


14 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

all the rank to which his destiny had raised her, and 
which her nature fitted her at once to adorn and to 
enjoy. In that calm and lonely hour she beguiled her 
heart by waking dreams vainer than the sleeper’s, and 
pictured to herself the long career of glory, the august 
decline of peace, which were to await her lord. 

And while she thus watched and thus dreamed, the 
cloud, as yet no bigger than a man’s hand, darkened 
the horizon of a fate whose sunshine was wellnigh 
past ! 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TKIBUNES. 


15 


CHAPTER II. 

The Flight. 

Fretting his proud heart, as a steed frets on the hit, 
old Colonna regained his palace. To him, innocent of 
the proposed crime of his kin and compeers, the whole 
scene of the night and morning presented but one 
feature of insult and degradation. Scarce was he in 
his palace, ere he ordered couriers in whom he knew 
he could confide to he in preparation for his summons. 
“ This to Avignon, ” said he to himself, as he concluded 
an epistle to the pontiff ; “ we will see whether the 
friendship of the great house of the Colonna will out- 
weigh the frantic support of the rabble’s puppet. — This 
to Palestrina, — the rock is inaccessible! — This to John 
di Vico; he may he relied upon, traitor though he he! 
— This to Naples; the Colonna will disown the Tri- 
bune’s ambassador, if he throw not up the trust and 
hasten hither, not a lover but a soldier! — And may 
this find Walter de Montreal! Ah, a precious mes- 
senger he sent us ; but I will forgive all, — all, for a 
thousand lances.” And as with trembling hands he 
twined the silk round his letters, he bade his pages 
invite to his board, next day, all the signors who had 
been implicated with him on the previous night. 

The barons came, — far more enraged at the disgrace 
of pardon than grateful for the boon of mercy. Their 
fears combined with their pride ; and the shouts of the 
mob, the whine of the cordeliers, still ringing in their 


16 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TKIBUNES. 


ears, they deemed united resistance the only course left 
to protect their lives and avenge their affront. 

To them the public pardon of the Tribune seemed 
only a disguise to private revenge. All they believed 
was that Rienzi did not dare to destroy them in the 
face of day; forgetfulness and forgiveness appeared to 
them as the means designed to lull their vigilance, while 
abasing their pride ; and the knowledge of crime detected 
forbade them all hope of safety. The hand of their own 
assassin might be armed against them, or they might be 
ruined singly, one by one, as was the common tyrant- 
craft of that day. Singularly enough, Luca di Savelli 
was the most urgent for immediate rebellion. The fear 
of death made the coward brave. 

Unable even to conceive the romantic generosity of 
the Tribune, the barons were yet more alarmed when, 
the next day, Rienzi, summoning them, one by one, to 
a private audience, presented them with gifts, and bade 
them forget the past; excused himself rather than them, 
and augmented their offices and honors. 

In the Quixotism of a heart to which royalty was 
natural, he thought that there was no medium course; 
and that the enmity he would not silence by death, he 
could crush by confidence and favors. Such conduct 
from a born king to hereditary inferiors might have been 
successful; but the generosity of one who has abruptly 
risen over his lords is but the ostentation of insult. 
E-ienzi in this, and, perhaps, in forgiveness itself, com- 
mitted a fatal error of policy, which the dark sagacity 
of a Visconti, or, in later times, of a Borgia, would 
never have perpetrated. But it was the error of a bright 
and a great mind. 

Nina was seated in the grand saloon of the palace, — it 
was the day of reception for the Roman ladies. 


RIENZT^ THE LA.ST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


17 


The attendance was so much less numerous than usual 
that it startled her, and she thought there was a cold- 
ness and restraint in the manner of the visitors present, 
which somewhat stung her vanity. 

“ I trust we have not offended the Signora Colonna, ” 
she said to the Lady of Gianni, Stephen’s son. “ She 
was wont to grace our halls, and we miss much her 
stately presence. ” 

“ Madame, my lord’s mother is unwell ! ” 

“ Is she so ? We will send for her more welcome 
news. Methinks we are deserted to-day.” 

As she spoke, she carelessly dropped her handkerchief : 
the haughty dame of the Colonna bent not, — not a 
hand stirred; and the Tribunessa looked for a moment 
surprised and disconcerted. Her eye roving over the 
throng, she perceived several, whom she knew as the 
wives of Rienzi’s foes, whispering together with mean- 
ing glances, and more than one malicious sneer at her 
mortification was apparent. She recovered herself in- 
stantly, and said to the Signora Frangipani, with a smile : 
“ May we be a partaker of your mirth ? You seem to 
have chanced on some gay thought, which it were a sin 
not to share freely.” 

The lady she addressed colored slightly, and replied, 
“We were thinking, madam, that had the Tribune been 
present, his vow of knighthood would have been called 
into requisition.” 

“ And how, signora ? ” 

“ It would have been his pleasing duty, madam, to 
succor the distressed. ” And the signora glanced signifi- 
cantly on the kerchief still on the floor. 

“ You designed me, then, this slight, signoras, ” said 
Hina, rising with great majesty. “ I know not whether 
your lords are equally hold to the Tribune ; hut this I 

VOL. II. — 2 


18 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


know, that the Tribune’s wife can in future forgive your 
absence. Four centuries ago, a Frangipani might well 
have stooped to a Easelli; to-day, the dame of a Eoman 
baron might acknowledge a superior in the wife of the 
first magistrate of Eome. I compel not your courtesy, 
nor seek it.” 

“We have gone too far,” whispered one of the ladies 
to her neighbor. “ Perhaps the enterprise will not suc- 
ceed ; and then — ” 

Further remark was cut short by the sudden entrance 
of the Tribune. He entered with great haste, and on his 
brow was that dark frown which none ever saw unquailing. 

“ How, fair matrons ! ” said he, looking round the 
room with a rapid glance, ye have not deserted us yet ? 
By the blessed cross, your lords pay a compliment to our 
honor, to leave us such lovely hostages, or else, God’s 
truth, they are ungrateful husbands. So, madam, ” 
turning sharp round to the wife of Gianni Colonna, 
“ your husband is fled to Palestrina ; yours. Signora 
Orsini, to Marino ; yours with him, fair bride of Frangi- 
pani, — ye came hither to — But ye are sacred even 
from a word ! ” 

The Tribune paused a moment, evidently striving to 
suppress his emotion, as he observed the terror he had 
excited; his eye fell upon Hina, who, forgetting her 
previous vexation, regarded him with anxious amaze- 
ment. “Yes,” said he to her, “you alone, perhaps, of 
this fair assemblage, know not that the nobles whom I 
lately released from the headsman’s gripe are a second 
time forsworn. They have left home in the dead of the 
night, and already the heralds proclaim them traitors and 
rebels. Rienzi forgives no more ! ” 

“ Tribune, ” exclaimed the Signora Frangipani, who 
had more bold blood in her veins than her whole house. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 19 

“ were I of thine own sex, I would cast the words 
‘ traitor and rebel, ’ given to my lord, in thine own teeth ! 
Proud man, the pontiff soon will fulfil that office ! ” 

“Your lord is blest with a dove, fair one,” said the 
Tribune, scornfully. “ Ladies, fear not ; while Kienzi 
lives, the wife even of his worst foe is safe and honored. 
The crowd will be here anon ; our guards shall attend ye 
home in safety, or this palace may be your shelter, — for 
I warn ye that your lords have rushed into a great peril, 
and ere many days be past, the streets of E-ome may he 
as rivers of blood. ” 

“We accept your offer. Tribune,” said the Signora 
Frangipani, who was touched, and, in spite of herself, 
awed by the Tribune’s manner. And as she spoke, she 
dropped on one knee, picked up the kerchief, and, pre- 
senting it respectfully to Nina, said: “Madam, forgive 
me. I alone of these present respect you more in 
danger than in pride.” 

“ And I, ” returned Nina, as she leaned in graceful 
confidence on Eienzi’s arm, — “I reply that if there be 
danger, the more need of pride.” 

All that day and all that night rang the great bell of 
the Capitol. But on the following daybreak the assem- 
blage was thin and scattered; there was a great fear 
stricken into the hearts of the people by the flight of the 
barons, and they bitterly and loudly upbraided Bienzi 
for sparing them to this opportunity of mischief. That 
day the rumors continued; the murmurers for the most 
part remained within their houses, or assembled in list- 
less and discontented troops. The next day dawned; 
the same lethargy prevailed. The Tribune summoned 
his council (which was a representative assembly). 

“ Shall we go forth as we are, ” said he, “ with such 
few as will follow the Eoman standard ? ” 


20 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ No, ” replied Pandulfo, who, by nature timid, was 
yet well acquainted with the disposition of the people, 
and therefore a sagacious counsellor. “ Let us hold 
hack; let us wait till the rebels commit themselves by 
some odious outrage, and then hatred will unite the 
waverers, and resentment lead them.” 

This counsel prevailed; the event proved its wisdom. 
To give excuse and dignity to the delay, messengers were 
sent to Marino, whither the chief part of the barons had 
fled, and which was strongly fortified, demanding their 
immediate return. 

On the day on which the haughty refusal of the insur- 
gents was brought to Rienzi, came fugitives from all 
parts of the Campagna. Houses burned, convents and 
vineyards pillaged, cattle and horses seized, — attested 
the warfare practised by the barons, and animated the 
drooping Romans, by showing the mercies they might 
expect for themselves. That evening, of their own 
accord, the Romans rushed into the place of the Capitol. 
Rinaldo Orsini had seized a fortress in the immediate 
neighborhood of Rome, and had set fire to a tower, the 
flames of which were visible to the city. The tenant of 
the tower, a noble lady, old and widowed, was burned 
alive. Then rose the wild clamor, the mighty wrath, 
the headlong fury. The hour for action had arrived.^ 

1 “ Ardea torre, arse la Castelluzza e case, e uomini. Non si 
schifo di ardere una nobile donna vedova, veterana, in una torre. 
Per tale crudeltade li Romani furo piii irati,” etc. — Vita di Cola di 
Rienzi^ lib. i. cap. 20. 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


21 


CHAPTER HI. 

The Battle. 

HAVE dreamed a dream,” cried Rienzi, leaping from 
his bed. “ The lion-hearted Boniface, foe and victim 
of the Colonna, hath appeared to me, and promised 
victory.^ Nina, prepare the laurel -wreath : this day 
victory shall be ours ! ” 

" Oh, Rienzi ! to-day ? ” 

“Yes! hearken to the bell, hearken to the trumpet. 
Nay, I hear even now the impatient hoofs of my white 
war-steed! One kiss, Nina, ere I arm for victory! 
Stay , — comfort poor Irene ; let me not see her, — she 
weeps that my foes are akin to her betrothed. I cannot 
brook her tears; I watched her in her cradle. To-day, 
I must have no weakness on my soul! Knaves, twice 
perjured! — wolves, never to be tamed! — shall I meet 
ye at last sword to sword? Away, sweet Nina, to Irene, 
quick! Adrian is at Naples; and were he in Rome, her 
lover is sacred, though fifty times a Colonna.” 

With that, the Tribune passed into his wardrobe, 
where his pages and gentlemen attended with his 
armor. “I hear by our spies,” said he, “that they 
will be at our gates ere noon, — four, thousand foot, 
seven hundred horsemen. We will give them a hearty 
welcome, my masters. How, Angelo Villani, my pretty 
page, what do you out of your lady’s service? ” 

1 “ In questa notte mi e apparito Santo Bonifacio Papa/' etc. 
Vita di Cola di Rienzi, lib. i. cap. 32. 


22 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

“ I would fain see a warrior arm for Rome,” said the 
boy, with a boy’s energy. 

“ Bless thee, my child! there spoke one of Rome’s 
true sons! ” 

“ And the signora has promised me that I shall go 
with her guard to the gates, to hear the news — ” 

“ And report the victory ? — thou shalt. But they 
must not let thee come within shaft-shot. What! my 
Pandulfo, thou in maiU ” 

“Rome requires every man,” said the citizen, whose 
weak nerves were strung by the contagion of the general 
enthusiasm. 

“She. doth, — and once more I am proud to be a 
Roman. Now, gentles, the Dalmaticum:^ I would 
that every foe should know Rienzi; and, by the Lord 
of Hosts, fighting at the head of the imperial people, 
I have a right to the imperial robe. Are the friars 
prepared ? Our march to the gates shall be preceded by 
a solemn hymn, — so fought our sires. ” 

“ Tribune, John di Vico is arrived with a hundred 
horse to support the Good Estate.” 

“ He hath ! — the Lord has delivered us then of a 
foe, and given our dungeons a traitor; bring hither yon 
casket, Angelo. So, — hark thee! Pandulfo, read this 
letter.” 

The citizen read, with surprise and consternation, 
the answer of the wily prefect to the Colonna’s epistle. 

“ He promises the baron to desert to him in the 
battle, with the prefect’s banner,” said Pandulfo. 

“ What is to be done ? ” 

“ What ! — take my signet, — here : see him lodged 

1 A robe or mantle of white, borne by Rienzi ; at one time 
belonging to the sacerdotal office afterwards an emblem of 
empire. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 23 

forthwith in the prison of the Capitol. Bid his train 
leave Rome, and if found acting with the barons, warn 
them that their lord dies. Go, — see to it without a 
moment’s delay. Meanwhile, to the chapel, — we will 
hear mass. ” 

Within an hour the Roman army, vast, miscella- 
neous, old men and hoys mingled with the vigor of 
life, were on their march to the Gate of San Lorenzo. 
Of their number, which mounted to twenty thousand 
foot, not one sixth could be deemed men-at-arms; but 
the cavalry were well equipped, and consisted of the 
lesser barons and the more opulent citizens. At the 
head of these rode the Tribune in complete armor, and 
wearing on his casque a wreath of oak and olive leaves, 
wrought in silver. Before him waved the great gon- 
falon of Rome, while in front of this multitudinous 
array marched a procession of monks, of the order of 
St. Francis (for the ecclesiastical body of Rome went 
chiefly with the popular spirit and its enthusiastic 
leader), slowly chanting the following hymn, which was 
made inexpressibly startling and imposing, at the close 
of each stanza, by the clash of arms, the blast of trum- 
pets, and the deep roll of the drum; which formed, as 
it were , a martial chorus to the song : — 


ROMAN WAR-SONG. 


I. 

March, march for your hearths and your altars. 

Cursed to all time be the dastard that falters, 

Never on earth may his sins be forgiven, 

Death on his soul, shut the portals of heaven! 

A curse on his heart, and a curse on his brain I 
Who strikes not for Rome, shall to Rome be her Cain. 


24 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


Breeze fill our banners, sun gild our spears, 

Spirito Santo, Cavaliers ! ^ 

Blow, trumpets, blow. 

Blow, trumpets, blow, 

Gayly to glory we come ; 

Like a king in his pomp, 

/ To the blast of the tromp, 

And the roar of the mighty drum ! 

Breeze fill our banners, sun gild our spears, 

Spirito Santo, Cavaliers ! 

II. 

March, march for your Freedom and Laws ! 

Earth is your witness, — all Earth’s is your cause ! 
Seraph and saint from their glory shall heed ye. 

The Angel that smote the Assyrian shall lead ye ; 

To the Christ of the Cross man is never so holy 
As in braving the proud in defence of the lowly ! 

Breeze fill our banners, sun gild our spears, 

Spirito Santo, Cavaliers/ 

Blow, trumpets, blow, 

Blow, trumpets, blow, 

Gayly to glory we come ; 

Like a king in his pomp. 

To the blast of the tromp, 

And the roar of the mighty drum ! 

Breeze fill our banners, sun gild our spears, 

Spirito Santo, Cavaliers / 

III. 

March, march ! ye are sons of the Roman, 

The sound of whose step was as fate to the foeman ! 

1 Rienzi’s word of battle was Spirito Santo Cavdiere ! — i. e., 
“ Cavalier ” in the singular number. The plural number has been 
employed in the text, as somewhat more animated, and therefore 
better adapted to the kind of poetry into the service of which the 
watchword has been pressed. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


25 


Whose realm, save the air and the wave, had no wall. 

As he strode through the world, like a lord in his hall ; 

Though your fame hath sunk down to the night of the grave, 

It shall rise from the field like the sun from the wave. 
Breeze fill our banners, sun gild our spears, 

Spirito Santo, Cavaliers ! 

Blow, trumpets, blow. 

Blow, trumpets, blow, 

Gayly to glory we come; 

Like a king in his pomp. 

To the blast of the tromp. 

And the roar of the mighty drum ! 

Breeze fill our banners, sun gild our spears, 

Spirito Santo, Cavaliers I 

In this rder they reached the wide waste that ruin 
and devastation left within the gates, and, marshalled 
in long lines on either side, extending far down the 
vistaed streets, and leaving a broad space in the centre, 
awaited the order of their leader. 

“ Throw open the gates and admit the foe ! ” cried 
E-ienzi with a loud voice, as the trumpets of the barons 
announced their approach. 

Meanwhile the insurgent patricians, who had marched 
that morning from a place called the Monument, four 
miles distant, came gallantly and boldly on. 

With old Stephen, whose great height, gaunt frame, 
and lordly air showed well in his gorgeous mail, rode 
his sons, — the Frangipani and the Savelli, and Giordano 
Orsini, brother to Einaldo. 

“To-day the tyrant shall perish,” said the proud 
baron , “ and the flag of the Colonna shall wave from 
the Capitol.” 

“ The flag of the Bear,” said Giordano Orsini, angrily. 

“ The victory will not be yours alone, my lord! ” 


26 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ Our house ever took precedence in Kome,” replied 
the Colonna, haughtily. 

“ Never, while one stone of the palaces of the Orsini 
stands upon another.” 

“ Hush ! ” said Luca di Savelli ; “ are ye dividing the 
skin while the lion lives? We shall have fierce work 
to-day. ” 

“ Not so,” said the old Colonna; “ John di Vico will 
turn, with his Romans, at the first onset, and some of 
the malcontents within have promised to open the gates. 
How, knave ? ” as a scout rode up breathless to the baron. 
“ What tidings ? ” 

“ The gates are opened, — not a spear gleams from the 
walls!” 

“ Did I not tell ye, lords? ” said the Colonna, turn- 
ing round triumphantly. “ Methinks we shall win 
Rome without a single blow. Grandson, where now 
are thy silly forebodings?” This was said to Pietro, 
one of his grandsons, — the first born of Gianni : a 
comely youth, not two weeks wedded, who made no 
reply. " My little Pietro here,” continued the baron, 
speaking to his comrades, “ is so new a bridegroom that 
last night he dreamed of his bride, and deems it, poor 
lad ! a portent. ” 

“ She was in deep mourning, and glided from my 
arms, uttering, ‘Woe, woe, to the Colonna! ’ ” said the 
young man, solemnly. 

“ I have lived nearly ninety years,” replied the old 
man, “and I may have dreamed, therefore, some forty 
thousand dreams; of which two came true, and the rest 
were false. Judge, then, what chances are in favor of 
the science!” 

Thus conversing, they approached within bowshot of 
the gates, which were still open. All was silent as 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


27 


death. The army, which was composed chiefly of 
foreign mercenaries, halted in deliberation; when, lo! 
a torch was suddenly cast on high over the walls; it 
gleamed a moment, and then hissed in the miry pool 
below. 

“ It is the signal of our friends within, as agreed on,” 
cried old Colonna. “ Pietro, advance with your com- 
pany!” The young nobleman closed his visor, put 
himself at the head of the band under his command; 
and, with his lance in rest, rode in a half gallop to the 
gates. The morning had been clouded and overcast, 
and the sun, appearing only at intervals, now broke out 
in a bright stream of light, — as it glittered on the 
waving plume and shining mail of the young horseman, 
disappearing under the gloomy arch, several paces in 
advance of his troop. On swept his followers, — for- 
ward went the cavalry, headed by Gianni Colonna, 
Pietro’s father. There was a minute’s silence, broken 
only by the clatter of the arms, and tramp of hoofs: 
when from within the walls rose the abrupt cry, 
“Rome, the Tribune, and the people! Spirito Santo, 
Cavaliers ! ” The main body halted aghast. Suddenly 
Gianni Colonna was seen flying backward from the gate 
at full speed. 

“My son, my son! ” he cried, “ they have murdered 
him; ” he halted abrupt and irresolute, then adding, 
“ But I will avenge ! ” wheeled round and spurred again 
through the arch, — when a huge machine of iron, shaped 
as a portcullis, suddenly descended upon the unhappy 
father, and crushed man and horse to the ground, — one 
blent, mangled, bloody mass. 

The old Colonna saw, and scarce believed his eyes; 
and ere his troop recovered its stupor, the machine 
rose, and over the corpse dashed the popular arma' 


28 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


ment. Thousands upon thousands, they came on; a 
wild, clamorous, roaring stream. They poured on all 
sides upon their enemies, who, drawn up in steady 
discipline and clad in complete mail, received and 
broke their charge. 

“Revenge and the Colonna!” — The Bear and the 
Orsini ! ” — “ Charity and the Frangipani ! ” ^ — “ Strike 
for the Snake ^ and the Savelli ! ” were then heard on 
high, mingled with the German and hoarse shout, 
“Full purses, and^ the Three Kings of Cologne.” The 
Romans, rather ferocious than disciplined, fell butch- 
ered in crowds round the ranks of the mercenaries: 
but as one fell , another succeeded ; and still burst with 
undiminished fervor the counter-cry of “ Rome, the 
Tribune, and the People! — Spirito Santo ^ Cavaliers ! ” 
Exposed to every shaft and every sword by his emblem- 
atic diadem and his imperial robe, the fierce Rienzi led 
on each assault, wielding an enormous battle-axe, for 
the use of which the Italians were celebrated, and which 
he regarded as a national weapon. Inspired by every 
darker and sterner instinct of his nature, his blood 
heated, his passions aroused, fighting as a citizen for 
liberty, as a monarch for his crown, his daring seemed 
to the astonished foe as that of one frantic, his preser- 
vation that of one inspired; now here, now there, 
wherever flagged his own or failed the opposing force, 
glittered his white robe, and rose his bloody battle-axe; 
but his fury seemed rather directed against the chiefs 
than the herd ; and still where his charger wheeled was 
heard his voice, “ Where is a Colonna? ” — Defiance 

1 Who had taken their motto from some fabled ancestor who 
had broke bread with a beggar in a time of famine. 

2 The Lion was, however, the animal usually arrogated by the 
heraldic vanity of the Savelli. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 29 

to the Orsini ! ” — “ Spirito Santo, Cavaliers ! ” Three 
times was the sally led from the gate ; three times were 
the Romans beaten hack; and on the third, the gon- 
falon, borne before the Tribune, was cloven to the 
ground. Then, for the first time, he seemed amazed 
and alarmed, and, raising his eyes to heaven, he 
exclaimed, “ 0 Lord, hast thou then forsaken me 1 ” 
With that, taking heart, once more he waved his arm, 
and again led forward his wild array. 

At eve the battle ceased. Of the barons, who had 
been the main object of the Tribune’s assault, the pride 
and boast was broken. Of the princely line of the 
Colonna, three lay dead. Giordano Orsini was mortally 
wounded ; the fierce Rinaldo had not shared the conflict. 
Of the Frangipani, the haughtiest signors were no more; 
and Luca, the dastard head of the Savelli, had long 
since saved himself by flight. On the other hand, the 
slaughter of the citizens had been prodigious ; the 
ground was swamped with blood, and over heaps of 
slain (steeds and riders), the twilight star beheld Rienzi 
and the Romans returning victors from the pursuit. 
Shouts of rejoicing followed the Tribune’s panting 
steed through the arch; and just as he entered the 
space within, crowds of those whose infirmities, sex, 
or years had not allowed them to share the conflict 
— women, and children, and drivelling age, mingled 
with the hare feet and dark robes of monks and friars, 
apprised of the victory — were prepared to hail his 
triumph. 

Rienzi reined his steed by the corpse of the hoy 
Colonna, which lay half immersed in a pool of water, 
and close by it, removed from the arch where he had 
fallen, lay that of Gianni Colonna (that Gianni Colonna 
whose spear had dismissed his brother’s gentle spirit). 


30 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


He glanced over the slain, as the melancholy Hesperus 
played upon the bloody pool and the gory corselet, with 
a breast heaved with many emotions; and turning, he 
saw the young Angelo, who, with some of Nina^s guard, 
had repaired to the spot, and had now approached the 
Tribune. 

“ Child,” said Kienzi, pointing to the dead, “ blessed 
art thou who hast no blood of kindred to avenge ! To 
him who hath, sooner or later comes the hour; and an 
awful hour it is ! ” 

The words sank deep into Angelo’s heart, and in 
after-life became words of fate to the speaker and the 
listener. 

Ere Kienzi had well recovered himself, — and as were 
heard around him the shrieks of the widows and mothers 
of the slain, the groans of the dying, the exhortations 
of the friars, mingled with sounds of joy and triumph, — 
a cry was raised by the women and stragglers on the 
battle-field without, of “ The foe! — the foe! ” 

“ To your swords ! ” cried the Tribune ; “ fall back in 
order, — yet they cannot be so bold ! ” 

The tramp of horses, the blast of a trumpet, were 
heard; and presently, at full speed, some thirty horse- 
men dashed through the gate. 

“Your bows!” exclaimed the Tribune, advancing; 
“ yet hold: the leader is unarmed, — it is our own ban- 
ner. By Our Lady, it is our ambassador of Naples, the 
Lord Adrian di Gastello ! ” 

Panting, breathless, covered with dust, Adrian halted 
at the pool red with the blood of his kindred; and 
their pale faces, set in death, glared upon him. 

“ Too late, — alas! alas! — dread fate ! — unhappy 
Rome! ” 

“ They fell into the pit they themselves had digged,” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


31 


said the Tribune, in a firm but hollow voice. “Noble 
Adrian, would thy counsels had prevented this! ” 

“Away, proud man, away!” said Adrian, impa- 
tiently waving his hand ; “ thou shouldst protect the 
lives of Komans, and — oh ! Gianni ! — Pietro ! — could 
not birth, renown, and thy green years, poor boy, — 
could not these save ye 1 ” 

“ Pardon him, my friends,” said the Tribune to the 
crowd, — “ his grief is natural , and he knows not all 
their guilt. Back, I pray ye, — leave him to our 
ministering. ” 

It might have fared ill for Adrian but for the 
Tribune’s brief speech. And as the young lord, dis- 
mounting, now bent over his kinsmen, the Tribune, 
also surrendering his charger to his squires, approached, 
and, despite Adrian’s reluctance and aversion, drew 
him aside. 

“Young friend,” said he, mournfully, “my heart 
bleeds for. you; yet bethink thee, the wrath of the 
crowd is fresh upon them; be prudent.” 

“Prudent!” 

“ Hush, — by my honor, these men were not worthy 
of your name. Twice perjured, once assassins, twice 
rebels, — listen to me ! ” 

“Tribune, I ask no other construing of what I see, 
— they might have died justly, or been butchered foully. 
But there is no peace between the executioner of my 
race and me.” 

“ Will yoUf too, be forsworn? Thine oath! — Come, 
come, I hear not these words. Be composed; retire, — 
and if, three days hence, you impute any other blame 
to me than that of unwise lenity, I absolve you from 
your oath, and you are free to be my foe. The crowd 
gape and gaze upon us, — a minute more, and I may 
not avail to save you.” 


32 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


The feelings of the young patrician were such as 
utterly baffle description. He had never been much 
amongst his house, nor ever received more than common 
courtesy at their hands. But lineage is lineage still ! 
And there, in the fatal hazard of war, lay the tree and 
sapling, the prime and hope of his race. He felt there 
was no answer to the Tribune ; the very place of their 
death proved they had fallen in an assault upon their 
countrymen. He sympathized not with their cause but 
their fate. And rage, revenge, alike forbidden, his 
heart was the more softened to the shock and paralysis 
of grief. He did not therefore speak , but continued to 
gaze upon the dead, while large and unheeded tears 
flowed' down his cheeks; and his attitude of dejection 
and sorrow was so moving that the crowd, at first 
indignant, now felt for his affliction. At length his 
mind seemed made up. He turned to Rienzi, and said 
falteringly: “Tribune, I, blame you not, nor accuse. 
If you have been rash in this, God will have blood for 
blood. I wage no war with you, — you say right, my 
oath prevents me; and if you govern well, I can still 
remember that I am a Roman. But — but — look to 
that bleeding clay ; we meet no more! — your sister, — 
God be with her ! — between her and me flows a dark 
gulf! ” The young noble paused some moments, choked 
by his emotions, and then continued : “ These papers 

discharge me of my mission. Standard-bearers, lay 
down the banner of the Republic. Tribune, speak not : 
I would be calm — calm. And so farewell to Rome ! ” 
With a hurried glance towards the dead, he sprung 
upon his steed, and, followed by his train, vanished 
through the arch. 

The Tribune had not attempted to detain him, had 
not interrupted him. He felt that the young noble had 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 33 

thought, acted as became him best. He followed him 
with his eyes. 

" And thus,” said he, gloomily, “ Fate plucks from me 
my noblest friend and my justest counsellor, — a better 
man Kome never lost! ” 

Such is the eternal doom of disordered states. The 
mediator between rank and rank, the kindly noble, 
the dispassionate patriot, the first to act, the most hailed 
in action , darkly vanishes from the scene. Fiercer and 
more unscrupulous spirits alone stalk the field; and 
no neutral and harmonizing link remains between hate 
and hate, until exhaustion, sick with horrors, suc- 
ceeds to frenzy, and despotism is welcomed as repose! 


VOL. II. — 3 


34 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTER IV. 

The Hollowness of the Base. 

The rapid and busy march of state events has led 
us long -away from the sister of the Tribune and the 
betrothed of Adrian; and the sweet thoughts and 
gentle day-dreams of that fair and enamored girl, how- 
ever full to her of an interest beyond all the storms and 
perils of ambition, are not so readily adapted to nar- 
ration: their soft monotony a few words can paint. 
They knew but one image, they tended to but one 
prospect. Shrinking from the glare of her brother’s 
court, and eclipsed, when she forced herself to appear, 
by the more matured and dazzling beauty and all- 
commanding presence of Nina, — to her the pomp and 
crowd seemed an unreal pageant, from which she retired 
to the truth of life, — the hopes and musings of her own 
heart. Poor girl! with all the soft and tender nature 
of her dead brother, and none of the stern genius and 
the prodigal ambition, the eye -fatiguing ostentation and 
fervor of the living, she was but ill-fitted for the 
unquiet but splendid region to which she was thus 
suddenly transferred. 

With all her affection for Rienzi, she could not 
conquer a certain fear which, conjoined with the dif- 
ference of sex and age, forbade her to be communicative 
with him upon the subject most upon her heart. 

As the absence of Adrian at the Neapolitan court 
passed the anticipated date (for at no court then, with 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


35 


a throne fiercely disputed, did the Tribune require a 
nobler or more intelligent representative, — and intrigues 
and counter-intrigues delayed his departure from week 
to week) , she grew uneasy and alarmed. Like many, 
themselves unseen, inactive, the spectators of the scene, 
she saw involuntarily further into the time than the 
deeper intellect either of the Tribune or Nina; and 
the dangerous discontent of the nobles was visible and 
audible to her in looks and whispers which reached 
not acuter or more suspected ears and eyes. Anxiously, 
restlessly, did she long for the return of Adrian, not 
from selfish motives alone, but from well-founded 
apprehensions for her brother. With Adrian di Gas- 
tello, alike a noble and a patriot, each party had found 
a mediator, and his presence grew daily more needed, 
till at length the conspiracy of the barons had broken 
out. From that hour she scarcely dared to hope; her 
calm sense, unblinded by the high-wrought genius 
which, as too often happens, made the Tribune see 
harsh realities through a false and brilliant light, per- 
ceived that the Euhicon was passed; and through all 
the events that followed she could behold but two 
images, — danger to her brother, separation from her 
betrothed. 

With Nina alone could her full heart confer; for 
Nina, with all the differences of character, was a woman 
who loved. And this united them. In the earlier 
power of Kienzi , many of their happiest hours had been 
passed together, remote from the gaudy crowd, alone 
and unrestrained, in the summer nights, on the moonlit 
balconies, in that interchange of thought, sympathy, and 
consolation which to two impassioned and guileless 
women makes the most interesting occupation and the 
most effectual solace. But of late this intercourse had 


36 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


been much marred. From the morning in which the 
barons had received their pardon to that on which they 
had marched on E-ome, had been one succession of fierce 
excitements. Every face Irene saw was clouded and 
overcast: all gayety was suspended, — bustling and 
anxious councillors or armed soldiers had for days 
been the only visitors of the palace. Eienzi had been 
seen but for short moments ; his brow wrapped in care. 
Nina had been more fond, more caressing than ever, 
but in those caresses there seemed a mournful and 
ominous compassion. . The attempts at comfort and 
hope were succeeded by a sickly smile and broken 
words; and Irene was prepared, by the presentiments 
of her own heart, for the stroke that fell : victory was 
to her brother ; his foe was crushed ; Eome was free , — 
but the lofty house of the Colonnas had lost its state- 
liest props, and Adrian was gone forever! She did not 
blame him ; she could not blame her brother : each had 
acted as became his several station. She was the poor 
sacrifice of events and fate , — the Iphigenia to the 
Winds which were to bear the bark of Kome to the 
haven, or, it might be, to whelm it in the abyss. She 
was stunned by the blow; she did not even weep or 
complain; she bowed to the storm that swept over her, 
and it passed. For two days she neither took food nor 
rest ; she shut herself up ; she asked only the boon of 
solitude ; but on the third morning she recovered as by 
a miracle, for on the third morning the following letter 
was left at the palace : — 

Irene, — Ere this you have learned my deep cause ot 
grief ; you feel that to a Colonna Rome can no longer be a 
home, nor Rome’s Tribune be a brother. While I write 
these words, honor but feebly supports me : all the hopes I 
had formed, all the prospects I had pictured, all the love I 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


37 


bore and bear thee, rush upon my heart, and I can only feel 
that I am wretched. Irene, Irene, your sweet face rises before 
me, and in those beloved eyes I read that I am forgiven, — 
I am understood ; and dearly as I know thou lovest me, thou 
wouldst rather I were lost to thee, rather I were in the grave 
with my kinsmen, than know I lived the reproach of my 
order, the recreant of my name. Ah ! why was I a Colonna ? 
Why did Fortune make me noble, and nature and circumstance 
attach me to the people ? I am barred alike from love and 
from revenge ; all my revenge falls upon thee and me. 
Adored! we are perhaps separated forever ; but, by all the 
happiness I have knowm by thy side, by all the rapture of 
which I dreamed, by that delicious hour which first gave 
thee to my gaze, when I watched the soft soul returning to 
thine eyes and lip, by thy first blushing confession of love, 
by our first kiss, by our last farewell, I swear to be faith- 
ful to thee to the last. None other shall ever chase thine 
image from my heart. And now, when hope seems over, 
Faith becomes doubly sacred; and thou, my beautiful, wilt 
thou not remember me, wilt thou not feel as if we were the 
betrothed of Heaven ? In the legends of the North we are 
told of the knight who, returning from the Holy Land, found 
his mistress (believing his death) the bride of Heaven, and he 
built a hermitage by the convent where she dwelt ; and though 
they never saw each other more, their souls were faithful 
unto death. Even so, Irene, be we to each other ; dead to 
all else, betrothed in memory, — to be wedded above ! And 
yet, yet ere I close, one hope dawns upon me. Thy brother’s 
career, bright and lofty, may be but as a falling star : should 
darkness swallow it, should his power cease, should his throne 
be broken, and Rome know no more her Tribune ; shouldst 
thou no longer have a brother in the judge and destroyer of 
my house; shouldst thou be stricken from pomp and state; 
shouldst thou be friendless, kindredless, alone, — then, with- 
out a stain on mine honor, without the shame and odium of 
receiving power and happiness from hands yet red with the 
blood of my race, I may claim thee as my own. Honor ceases 
to command when thou ceasest to be great. I dare not too 


38 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


fondly indulge this dream, — perchance it is a sin in both. 
But it must be whispered, that thou mayest know all thy 
Adrian, all his weakness and his strength. My own loved, 
my ever loved, loved more fondly now when loved despair- 
ingly, farewell! May angels heal thy sorrow, and guard me 
from sin, that hereafter at least we may meet again ! 

“ He loves me, — he loves me still I ” said the maiden, 
weeping at last; “ and I am blest once more! ” 

With that letter pressed to her heart she recovered 
outwardly from the depth of her affliction ; she met her 
brother with a smile, and Nina with embraces: and if 
still she pined and sorrowed, it was in that “ conceal- 
ment ” which is the “ worm i’ the bud.” 

Meanwhile, after the first flush of victory, lamenta- 
tion succeeded to joy in Home; so great had been the 
slaughter that the private grief was large enough to 
swallow up all public triumph; and many of the mourn- 
ers blamed even their defender for the swords of the 
assailant, “ Roma fu terribilmente vedovata. ” ^ The 
numerous funerals deeply affected the Tribune; and, 
in proportion to his sympathy with his people, grew 
his stern indignation against the barons. Like all men 
whose religion is intense, passionate, and zealous, the 
Tribune had little toleration for those crimes which 
went to the root of religion. Perjury was to him the 
most base and inexpiable of offences, and the slain 
barons had been twice perjured: in the bitterness of 
his wrath he forbade their families for some days to 
lament over their remains; and it was only in private 
and in secret that he permitted them to be interred in 
their ancestral vaults, — an excess of vengeance which 
sullied his laurels, but which was scarcely inconsistent 
with the stern patriotism of his character. Impatient 
1 Rome was terribly widowed. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


39 


to finish what he had begun, anxious to march at once 
to Marino, where the insurgents collected their shat- 
tered force, he summoned his council and represented 
the certainty of victory, and its result in the complete 
restoration of peace. But pay was due to the soldiery : 
they already murmured; the treasury was emptied, it 
was necessary to fill it by raising a new tax. 

Among the councillors were some whose families had 
suffered grievously in the battle, — they lent a lukewarm 
attention to propositions of continued strife. Others, 
among whom was Pandulfo, timid but well meaning, 
aware that grief and terror even of their own triumph 
had produced reaction amongst the people, declared that 
they would not venture to propose a new tax. A third 
party, headed by Baroncelli — a demagogue whose ambi- 
tion was without principle, but who, by pandering to 
the worst passions of the populace, by a sturdy coarse- 
ness of nature with which they sympathized, and by 
that affectation of advancing what we now term the 
“movement,” which often gives to the fiercest fool an 
advantage over the most prudent statesman, had quietly 
acquired a great influence with the lower ranks — offered 
a more bold opposition. They dared even to blame the 
proud Tribune for the gorgeous extravagance they had 
themselves been the first to recommend, and half 
insinuated sinister and treacherous motives in his 
acquittal of the barons from the accusation of Bodolph. 
In the very Parliament which the Tribune had revived 
and remodelled for the support of freedom, freedom 
was abandoned. His fiery eloquence met with a gloomy 
silence; and finally, the votes were against his proposi- 
tions for the new tax and the march to Marino. Rienzi 
broke up the council in haste and disorder. As he left 
the hall, a letter was put into his hands; he read it, 


40 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

and remained for some moments as one thunderstruck. 
He then summoned the captain of his guards, and 
ordered a hand of fifty horsemen to he prepared for his 
commands; he repaired to Nina^s apartment, he found 
her alone, and stood for some moments gazing upon her 
so intently that she was awed and chilled from all 
attempt at speech. At length he said abruptly, — 

“We must part.” 

“ Part! ” 

“Yes, Nina, — your guard is preparing; you have 
relations, T have friends, at Florence. Florence must 
be your home.” 

“ Cola — ” 

“Look not on me thus. In power, in state, in 
safety, you were my ornament and counsellor; now 
you but embarrass me. And — ” 

“Oh, Cola, speak not thus! What hath chanced? 
Be not so cold, — frown not, turn not away! Am I 
not something more to thee than the partner of joyous 
hours, — the minion of love? Am I not thy wife. 
Cola, — not thy leman?” 

“ Too dear — too dear to me,” muttered the Tribune; 
“ with thee by my side I shall be but half a Eoman. 
Nina, the base slaves whom I myself made free desert 
me. Now, in the very hour in which I might sweep 
away forever all obstacles to the regeneration of Pome ; 
now, when one conquest points the path to complete 
success; now, when the land is visible, my fortune 
suddenly leaves me in the midst of the seas! There 
is greater danger now than in the rage of the barons , — 
the barons are fled; it is the people who are becoming 
traitors to Rome and to me.” 

“ And wouldwst thou have me traitor also? No, Cola; 
in death itself Nina shall be beside thee. Life and 


RIENZI,THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


41 


honor are reflected but from thee, and the stroke that 
slays the substance shall destroy the humble shadow. 
I will not part from thee.” 

“Nina,” said the Tribune, contending with strong 
and convulsive emotion, — “ it may be literally of death 
that you speak. Go; leave one who can no longer 
protect you or Rome ! ” 

“ Never — never ! ” 

“ You are resolved? ” 

“lam.” 

“Be it so,” said the Tribune, with deep sadness in 
his tone. “Arm thyself for the worst.” 

“ There is no worst with thee. Cola ! ” 

“ Come to my arms, brave woman; thy words rebuke 
my weakness. But my sister! If I fall, you^ Nina, 
will not survive, — your beauty a prey to the most 
lustful heart and the strongest hand. We will have 
the same tomb, on the wrecks of Roman liberty. But 
Irene is of weaker mould. Poor child ! I have robbed 
her of a lover ; and now — ” 

“ You are right; let Irene go. And in truth we may 
well disguise from her the real cause of her departure. 
Change of scene were best for her grief, and under all 
circumstances would seem decorum to the curious. I 
will see and prepare her.” 

“ Do so, sweetheart. I would gladly be a moment 
alone with thought. But remember she must part 
to-day, — our sands run low.” 

As the door closed on Nina, the Tribune took out the 
letter and again read it deliberately. “ So the pope’s 
legate left Sienna; prayed that republic to withdraw 
its auxiliary troops from Rome; proclaimed me a rebel 
and a heretic; thence repaired to Marino; now in 
council with the barons. Why have my dreams belied 


42 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


me, then, — false as the waking things that flatter and 
betray by day? In such peril, will the people forsake 
me and themselves ? Army of saints and martyrs, 
shades of heroes and patriots, have ye abandoned for- 
ever your ancient home? No, no, I was not raised to 
perish thus ; I will defeat them yet, and leave my name 
a legacy to Eome, — a warning to the oppressor, an 
example to the free ! ” 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TKIBUNES. 


43 


CHAPTER V. 

The Rottenness of the Edifice. 

The kindly skill of Nina induced Irene to believe that 
it was but the tender consideration of her brother to 
change a scene embittered by her own thoughts, and in 
which the notoriety of her engagement with Adrian 
exposed her to all that could mortify and embarrass, 
that led to the proposition of her visit to Florence. Its 
suddenness was ascribed to the occasion of an unexpected 
mission to Florence (for a loan of arms and money), 
which thus gave her a safe and honored escort. Pas- 
sively she submitted to what she herself deemed a relief; 
and it was agreed that she should for a while be the 
guest of a relation of Nina’s, who was the abbess of one 
of the wealthiest of the Florentine convents : the idea of 
monastic seclusion was welcome to the bruised heart and 
wearied spirit. 

But though not apprised of the immediate peril of 
Rienzi, it was with deep sadness and gloomy forebodings 
that she returned his embrace and parting blessing; and 
when at length alone in her litter, and beyond the gates 
of Rome, she repented a departure to which the chance 
of danger gave the appearance of desertion. 

Meanwhile, as the declining day closed around the 
litter and its troop, more turbulent actors in the drama 
demand our audience. T^he traders and artisans of Rome 
at that time, and especially during the popular govern- 
ment of Rienzi, held weekly meetings in each of the 


44 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


thirteen quarters of the city ; and in the most democratic 
of these, Cecco del Vecchio was an oracle and leader. It 
was at that assembly over which the smith presided 
that the murmurs that preceded the earthquake were 
heard. 

“ So,” cried one of the company, — Luigi, the goodly 
butcher, — “ they say he wanted to put a new tax on us ; 
and that is the reason he broke up the council to-day, 
because, good men, they were honest, and had bowels 
for the people. It is a shame and a sin that the treasury 
should be empty.” 

“ I told him, ” said the smith, “ to beware how he 
taxed the people. Poor men won’t be taxed. But as 
he does not follow my advice, he must take the conse- 
quence, — the horse runs from one hand, the halter 
remains in the other.” 

“ Take your advice, Cecco ! I warrant me his stomach 
is too high for that now. Why, he is grown as proud as 
a pope.” 

“ For all that, he is a great man, ” said one of the 
party. “ He gave us laws ; he rid the Campagna of 
robbers; filled the streets with merchants, and the shops 
with wares ; defeated the boldest lords and fiercest 
soldiery of Italy — ” 

“ And now wants to tax the people ! — that ’s all the 
thanks we get for helping him,” said the grumbling 
Cecco. “ What would he have been without us ? — we 
that make can unmake. ” 

“ But, ” continued the advocate, seeing that he had 
his supporters,' — “ hut then he taxes us for our own 
liberties. ” 

“ Who strikes at them now ? ” asked the butcher. 

“ Why, the barons are daily mustering new strength at 
Marino. ” 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


45 


“ Marino is not Kome, ” said Luigi, the butcher. 
“ Let ’s wait till they come to our gates again, — we 
know how to receive them; though, for the matter of 
that, I think we have had enough fighting, — my two 
.poor brothers had each a stab too much for them. Why 
won’t the Tribune, if he he a great man, let us have 
peace ? All we want now is quiet. ” 

“ Ah ! ” said a seller of horse-harness, “ let him make 
it up with the barons. They were good customers, after 
all.” 

“ Tor my part, ” said a merry -looking fellow, who had 
been a gravedigger in bad times, and had now opened a 
stall of wares for the living, “ I could forgive him all but 
bathing in the holy vase of porphyry.” 

“ Ah, that was a bad job, ” said several, shaking their 
heads. 

“ And the knighthood was but a silly show, an it were 
not for the wine from the horse’s nostrils, — that had 
some sense in it.” 

“ My masters, ” said Cecco, “ the folly was in not 
beheading the barons when he had them all in the net ; 
and so Messere Baroncelli says. (Ah, Baroncelli is an 
honest man, and follows no half measures!) It was a 
sort of treason to the people not to do so. Why, but for 
that, we should never have lost so many tall fellows by 
the gate of San Lorenzo.” 

“ True, true, it was a shame ; some say the barons 
bought him.” 

“ And then, ” said another, “ those poor Lords Colonna, 
— boy and man : they were the best of the family, save 
the Gastello. I vow I pitied them.” 

“ But to the point, ” said one of the crowd , the richest 
of the set ; “ the tax is the thing. The ingratitude to 
tax us ! Let him dare to do ft 1 ” 


46 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ Oh, he will not dare, for I hear that the pope's 
bristles are up at last; so he will only have us to depend 
upon ! ” 

The door was thrown open: a man rushed in open- 
mouthed, — 

“ Masters, masters, the pope’s legate has arrived at 
Eome, and sent for the Tribune, who has just left his 
presence. ” 

Ere his auditors had recovered their surprise, the 
sound of trumpets made them rush forth; they saw 
Eienzi sweep by with his usual cavalcade and in his 
proud array. The twilight was advancing, and torch- 
bearers preceded his way. Upon his countenance was 
deep calm, but it was not the calm of contentment. He 
passed on, and the street was again desolate. Meanwhile 
Eienzi reached the Capitol in silence, and mounted to the 
apartments of the palace, where Nina, pale and breath- 
less, awaited his return. 

“Well, well, thou smilest! No, — it is that dread 
smile, worse than frowns. Speak, beloved, speak ! 
What said the cardinal ? ” 

“ Little thou wilt love to hear. He spoke at first 
high, and solemnly, about the crime of declaring the 
Romans free, next about the treason of asserting that 
the election of the King of Eome was in the hands of 
the Romans.” 

“ Well, — thy answer ? ” 

“ That which became Rome’s Tribune : I re-asserted 
each right, and proved it. The cardinal passed to other 
charges. ” 

“ What?” 

“ The blood of the barons by San Lorenzo, — blood 
only shed in our own defence against perjured assail- 
ants; this is in reality the main crime. The Colonna 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


47 


have the pope’s ear. Furthermore, the sacrilege — yes, 
the sacrilege (come laugh, Nina, laugh !) — of bathing 
in a vase of porphyry used by Constantine while yet a 
heathen. ” 

“ Can it be ! What saidst thou ? ” 

“ I laughed. ‘ Cardinal, * quoth I, ‘ what was not 
too good for a heathen is not too good for a Christian 
Catholic! ’ And verily the sour Frenchman looked as 
if I had smote him on the hip. When he had done, I 
asked him, in my turn, ‘Is it alleged against me that 
I have wronged one man in my judgment-court? ’ 
Silence. ‘ Is it said that I have broken one law of the 
state?’ Silence. ‘Is it even whispered that trade 
does not flourish; that life is not safe; that abroad or 
at home the Homan name is not honored, to that point 
which no former rule can parallel ? ’ Silence. ‘ Then, ’ 
said [, ‘ Lord Cardinal , I demand thy thanks, not thy 
censure.’ The Frenchman looked, and looked, and 
trembled, and shrunk, and then out he spake. ‘ I have 
but one mission to fulfil, on the part of the pontiff, — 
resign at once thy Tribuneship, or the Church inflicts 
upon thee its solemn curse. ’ ” 

“ How, how ! ” said Nina, turning very pale ; “ what is 
it that awaits thee ? ” 

“ Excommunication ! ” 

This awful sentence, by which the spiritual arm had 
so often stricken down the fiercest foe, came to Nina’s 
ear as a knell. She covered her face with her hands. 
Kienzi paced the room with rapid strides. “ The curse, ” 
he muttered; “ the Church’s curse, — for me, for me ! ” 

“ Oh, Cola ! didst thou not seek to pacify this 
stern — ” 

“ Pacify ! Death and dishonor ! Pacify ! ‘ Cardinal, ’ 

I said, and I felt his soul shrivel at my gaze, ‘ my power 


48 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

I received from the people, — to the people alone I 
render it. For my soul, man’s word cannot scathe it. 
Thou, haughty priest, thou thyself art the accursed, if, 
puppet and tool of low cabals and exiled tyrants, thou 
breathest but a breath, in the name of the Lord of 
Justice, for the cause of the oppressor, and against 
the rights of the oppressed.’ With that I left him; and 
now — ” 

“ Ay, now, — now what will happen ? Excommuni- 
cation ! In the metropolis of the Church, too — the 
superstition of the people ! Oh, Cola ! ” 

“ If, ” muttered Eienzi, “ my conscience condemned 
me of one crime; if I had stained my hands in one 
just man’s blood; if I had broken one law I myself 
had framed ; if I had taken bribes, or wronged the poor, 
or scorned the orphan, or shut my heart to the widow, 
then, then — But no ! Lord, thou wilt not desert 
me! ” 

“ But man maj^ ! ” thought Nina mournfully, as she 
perceived that one of Bienzi’s dark fits of fanatical and 
mystical reverie was growing over him, — fits which he 
suffered no living eye, not even Nina’s, to witness when 
they gathered to their height. And now, indeed, after 
a short interval of muttered soliloquy, in which his face 
worked so that the veins on his temples swelled like 
cords, he abruptly left the room, and sought the pri- 
vate oratory connected with his closet. Over the emo- 
tions there indulged let us draw the veil. Who shall 
describe those awful and mysterious moments when man, 
with all his fiery passions, turbulent thoughts, wild 
hopes, and despondent fears, demands the solitary audi- 
ence of his Maker? 

It was long after this conference with Nina, and the 
midnight bell had long tolled, when Bienzi stood alone, 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 49 

upon one of the balconies of the palace, to cool in the 
starry air the fever that yet lingered on his exhausted 
frame. The night was exceedingly calm, the air clear 
hut chill, for it was now December. He gazed intently 
upon those solemn orbs to which our wild credulity has 
referred the prophecies of our doom. 

“ Vain science ! ” thought the Tribune, and gloomy 
fantasy, that man’s fate is preordained — irrevocable, 
unchangeable — from the moment of his birth! Yet, 
were the dream not baseless, fain would I know which 
of yon stately lights is my natal star; which images, 
which reflects, my career in life, and the memory I shall 
leave in death. ” As this thought crossed him, and his 
gaze was still fixed above, he saw, as if made suddenly 
more distinct than the stars around it, that rapid and 
fiery comet which in the winter of 1347 dismayed the 
superstitions of those who recognized in the stranger of 
the heavens the omen of disaster and of woe. He 
recoiled as it met his eye, and muttered to himself ; “ Is 
such indeed my type! or, if the legendary lore speak 
true, and these strange fires portend nations ruined and 
rulers overthrown, does it foretell my fate? I will 
think no more. ” ^ As his eyes fell, they rested upon 
the colossal Lion of Basalt in the place below, the star- 
light investing its gray and towering form with a more 
ghostly whiteness; and then it was that he perceived 
two figures in black robes lingering by the pedestal 
which supported the statue, and apparently engaged 
in some occupation which he could not guess. A fear 
shot through his veins, for he had never been able to 
divest himself of the vague idea that there was some 

1 Alas ! if by the Romans associated with the fall of Rienzi, that 
comet was by the rest of Europe connected with the more dire 
calamity of the Great Plague that so soon afterwards ensued. 

VOL. IL — 4 


60 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

solemn and appointed connection between his fate and 
that old Lion of Basalt. Somewhat relieved, he heard 
his sentry challenge the intruders; and as they came 
forward to the light, he perceived that they wore the 
garments of monks. 

“ Molest us not, son, ” said one of them to the sentry. 
“ By order of the legate of the holy father, we affix to 
this public monument of justice and of wrath the bull 
of excommunication against a heretic and rebel. Woe 
TO THE Accursed of the Church ! ” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


51 


CHAPTER VI. 

The Fall of the Temple. 

It was a thunderbolt in a serene day, — the reverse of 
the Tribune in the zenith of his power, in the abase- 
ment of his foe; when, with hut a handful of brave 
Romans, determined to be free, he might have crushed 
forever the antagonist power to the Roman liberties, — 
have secured the rights of his country, and filled up the 
measure of his own renown. Such a reverse was the 
very mockery of Fate, who bore him through disaster, 
to abandon him in the sunniest noon of his prosperity. 

The next morning not a soul was to be seen in the 
streets; the shops were shut, — the churches closed; the 
city was as under an interdict. The awful curse of 
the papal excommunication upon the chief magistrate of 
the Pontifical City seemed to freeze up all the arteries 
of life. The legate himself, affecting fear of his life, 
had fled to Monte Eiascone, where he was joined by 
the barons immediately after the publication of the 
edict. The curse worked best in the absence of the 
execrator. 

Towards evening a few persons might he seen travers- 
ing the broad space of the Capitol, crossing themselves, 
as the hull, placarded on the Lion, met their eyes, and 
disappearing within the doors of the great palace. By 
and by a few anxious groups collected in the streets, but 
they soon dispersed. It was a paralysis of all intercourse 
and commune. That spiritual and unarmed authority, 


52 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


which, like the invisible hand of God, desolated the 
marketplace, and humbled the crowned head, no physi- 
cal force could rally against or resist. Yet, through the 
universal awe, one conviction touched the multitude, — 
it was for them that their Tribune was thus blasted in 
the midst of his glories ! The words of the brand re- 
corded against him on wall and column detailed his 
offences, — rebellion in asserting the liberties of Rome ; 
heresy in purifying ecclesiastical abuses ; — and, to serve 
for a miserable covert to the rest, it was sacrilege for 
bathing in the porphyry vase of Constantine! They 
felt the conviction; they sighed, they shuddered; and, 
in his vast palace, save a few attached and devoted 
hearts, the Tribune was alone ! 

The stanchest of his Tuscan soldiery were gone with 
Irene. The rest of his force, save a few remaining 
guards, was the paid Roman militia, composed of citi- 
zens who, long discontented by the delay of their 
stipends, now seized on the excuse of the excommunica- 
tion to remain passive hut grumbling in their homes. 

On the third day a new incident broke upon the death- 
like lethargy of the city : a hundred and fifty mercenaries, 
with Pepin of Minorbino, a Neapolitan, half noble, half 
bandit (a creature of Montreal’s), at their head, entered 
the city, seized upon the fortresses of the Colonna, and 
sent a herald through the city, proclaiming, in the name 
of the cardinal legate, the reward of ten thousand florins 
for the head of Cola di Rienzi. 

Then swelled on high, shrill but not inspiring as of 
old, the great hell of the Capitol, — the people, listless, 
disheartened, awed by the spiritual fear of the papal 
authority (yet greater, in such events, since the removal 
of the See), came unarmed to the Capitol; and there, by 
the Place of the Lion, stood the Tribune. His squires, 


HIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


53 


below the step, held his war-horse, his helm, and the 
same battle-axe which had blazed in the van of victorious 
war. 

Beside him were a few of his guard, his attendants, 
and two or three of the principal citizens. 

He stood bareheaded and erect, gazing upon the 
abashed and unarmed crowd with a look of bitter scorn, 
mingled with deep compassion; and as the bell ceased 
its toll, and the throng remained hushed and listening, 
he thus spoke : — 

“Ye come, then, once again! Come ye as slaves or 
freemen ? A handful of armed men are in your walls ; 
will ye who chased from your gates the haughtiest 
knights, the most practised battle -men of Borne, suc- 
cumb now to one hundred and fifty hirelings and stran- 
gers? Will you arm for your Tribune ? You are silent! 
Be it so. Will ye arm for your own liberties, your 
own Borne ? Silent still ! By the saints that reign on 
the thrones of the heathen gods ! are ye thus fallen 
from your birthright ? Have you no arms for your own 
defence? Bomans, hear me! Have I wronged you? 
If so, by your hands let me die ; and then, with knives 
yet reeking with my blood, go forward against the rob- 
ber who is but the herald of your slavery; and I die 
honored, grateful, and avenged. You weep! Great 
God! you weep! Ah, and I could weep too, — that I 
should live to speak of liberty in vain to Bomans. 
Weep! is this an hour for tears? Weep now, and your 
tears shall ripen harvests of crime and license and 
despotism to come ! Bomans, arm ! follow me at once 
to the Place of the Colonna ; expel this ruffian, — expel 
your enemy (no matter what afterwards you do to me), ” — 
he paused; no ardor was kindled by his words, — “or,” 
he continued, “ I abandon you to your fate. ” There was 


54 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


a long, low, general murmur; at length it became shaped 
into speech, and many voices cried simultaneously : “ The 
pope’s hull ! — thou art a man accursed ! ” 

“ What ! ” cried the Tribune ; “and is it ye who 
forsake me, ye for whose cause alone man dares to hurl 
against me the thunders of his God % Is it not for you 
that I am declared heretic and rebel ? What are my 
imputed crimes? That I have made Rome and as^ 
serted Italy to he free ; that I have subdued the proud 
magnates, who were the scourge both of pope and 
people. And you — you upbraid me with what I have 
dared and done for you! Men, with you I would have 
fought, for you I would have perished. You forsake 
yourselves in forsaking me ; and since I no longer rule 
over brave men, I resign my power to the tyrant you 
prefer. Seven months I have ruled over you, pros- 
perous in commerce, stainless in justice, victorious in 
the field: I have shown you what Rome could be; 
and since I abdicate the government ye gave me, when 
I am gone, strike for your own freedom! It matters 
nothing who is the chief of a brave and great people. 
Prove that Rome hath many a Rienzi, but of brighter 
fortunes. ” 

“I would he had not sought to tax# us,” said Cecco 
del Vecchio, who was the very personification of 
the vulgar feeling, “and that he had beheaded the 
barons ! ” 

“ Ay ! ” cried the ex-gravedigger ; “ but that blessed 
porphyry vase ! ” 

“ And why should we get our throats cut,” said Luigi, 
the butcher, “like my two brothers, — Heaven rest 
them ! ” 

On the face of the general multitude there was a 
common expression of irresolution and shame; many 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


55 


wept and groaned ; none (save the aforesaid grumblers) 
accused; none upbraided, but none seemed disposed to 
arm. It was one of those listless panics, those strange 
fits of indifference and lethargy, which often seize upon 
a people who make liberty a matter of impulse and 
caprice, to whom it has become a catchword, who have 
not long enjoyed all its rational and sound and prac- 
tical and blessed results; who have been affrayed by 
the storms that herald its dawn, — a people such as is 
common to the South; such as even the North has 
known; such as, had Cromwell lived a year longer, 
even England might have seen; and, indeed, in some 
measure, such a reaction from popular enthusiasm to 
popular indifference England did see, when her chil- 
dren madly surrendered the fruits of a bloody war, 
without reserve, without foresight, to the lewd pen- 
sioner of Louis and the royal murderer of Sydney. 
To such prostration of soul, such blindness of intellect, 
even the noblest people will be subjected, when liberty, 
which should be the growth of ages, spreading its roots 
through the strata of a thousand customs, is raised, the 
exotic of an hour, and (like the Tree and Dryad of 
ancient fable) flourishes and withers with the single 
spirit that protects it. 

“ Oh, Heaven, that I were a man ! ” exclaimed Angelo, 
who stood behind E-ienzi. 

“ Hear him, hear the boy,” cried the Tribune; “ out 
of the mouths of babes speaketh wisdom ! He wishes 
that he were a man, as ye are men, that he might do as 
ye should do. Mark me, — I ride with these faithful 
few through the quarter of the Colonna, before the for- 
tress of your foe. Three times before that fortress shall 
my trumpets sound; if at the third blast ye come not, 
armed as befits ye, — I say not all, but three, but two, 


56 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


but one hundred of ye, — I break up my wand of office, 
and the world shall say one hundred and fifty robbers 
quelled the soul of Eome, and crushed her magistrate 
and her laws ! 

With these words he descended the stairs and mounted 
his charger; the populace gave way in silence, and their 
Tribune and his slender train passed slowly on, and 
gradually vanished from the view of the increasing 
crowd. 

The Komans remained on the place; and after a pause 
the demagogue Baroncelli, who saw an opening to his 
ambition, addressed them. Though not an eloquent 
nor gifted man, he had the art of uttering the most 
popular commonplaces; and he knew the weak side 
of his audience, in their vanity, indolence, and arrogant 
pride. 

“ Look you, my masters! ” said he, leaping up to the 
Place of the Lion; “the Tribune talks bravely, — he 
always did, — but the monkey used the cat for his 
chestnuts; he wants to thrust your paws into the fire; 
you will not be so silly as to let him. The saints bless 
us! but the Tribune, good man, gets a palace, and has 
banquets, and bathes in a porphyry vase — the more 
shame on him ! — in which San Sylvester christened 
the Emperor Constantine: all this is worth fighting 
for; but you, my masters, what do you get except hard 
blows, and a stare at a holiday spectacle? Why, if you 
beat these fellows, you will have another tax on the 
wine : that will be your reward. ” 

“ Hark! ” cried Cecco, “ there sounds the trumpet, — 
a pity he wanted to tax us ! ” 

“ True,” cried Baroncelli, “ there sounds the trumpet; 
a silver trumpet, by the Lord! Next week, if you help 
him out of the scrape, he ’ll have a golden one. But 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


57 


go, — why don’t you move, my friends 1 — ’t is but one 
hundred and fifty mercenaries. True, they are devils 
to fight, clad in armor from top to toe , but what then 'i 
— if they do cut some four or five hundred throats, 
you ’ll beat them at last, and the Tribune will sup the 
merrier. ” 

“ There sounds the second blast,” said the butcher. 
“ If my old mother had not lost two of us already, ’t is 
odds but I ’d strike a blow for the bold Tribune.” 

“ You had better put more quicksilver in you,” con- 
tinued Baroncelli , ‘‘ or you will be too late. And what 
a pity that will be! If you believe the Tribune, he 
is the only man that can save Rome. What, you, the 
finest people in the world, — you not able to save your- 
selves, you bound up with one man, you not able 
to dictate to the Colonna and Orsini ! Why, who beat 
the barons at San Lorenzo? Was it not you? Ah! 
you got the buffets, and the Tribune the monetal 
Tush, my friends, let the man go; I warrant there are 
plenty as good as he to be bought a cheaper bargain. 
And, hark! there is the third blast; it is too late 
now ! ” 

As the trumpet from the distance sent forth its long 
and melancholy note, it was as the last warning of the 
parting genius of the place ; and when silence swallowed 
up the sound, a gloom fell over the whole assembly. 
They began to regret, to repent, when regret and repent- 
ance availed no more. The buffoonery of Baroncelli 
became suddenly displeasing; and the orator had the 
mortification of seeing his audience disperse in all direc- 
tions, just as he was about to inform them what great 
things he himself could do in their behalf. 

Meanwhile the Tribune, passing unscathed through 
the dangerous quarter of the enemy, who, dismayed at 


58 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


his approach, shrunk within their fortress, proceeded to 
the castle of St. Angelo, whither Nina had already pre- 
ceded him; and which he entered to find that proud 
lady with a smile for his safety, without a tear for his 
reverse. 


filENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


59 


CHAPTER VII. 

The Successors of an unsuccessful Revolution. — Who is to blame, 
— the Forsaken One or the Forsakers ? 

Cheerfully broke the winter sun over the streets of 
Kome, as the army of the barons swept along them. The 
cardinal legate at the head; the old Colonna (no longer 
haughty and erect, but bowed and broken-hearted at the 
loss of his sons) at his right hand; the sleek smile of 
Luca Savelli, the black frown of Rinaldi Orsini, were 
seen close behind. A long but barbarous array it was, 
made up chiefly of foreign hirelings; nor did the pro- 
cession resemble the return of exiled citizens, but the 
march of invading foes. 

“My Lord Colonna,” said the cardinal legate, — a 
small, withered man, by birth a Frenchman, and full of 
the bitterest prejudices against the Romans, who had in 
a former mission very ill received him, as was their 
wont with foreign ecclesiastics, — “this Pepin, whom 
Montreal has deputed at your orders, hath done us 
indeed good service.” 

The old lord bowed, but made no answer. His strong 
intellect was already broken, and there was dotage in his 
glassy eye. The cardinal muttered, “ He hears me not; 
sorrow hath brought him to second childhood ! ” and 
looking back, motioned to Luca Savelli to approach. 

“Luca,” said the legate, “it was fortunate that the 
Hungarian’s black banner detained the Provencal at 
Aversa. Had he entered Rome, we might have found 


60 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


E/ienzi's successor worse than the Tribune himself. 
Montreal,” he added, with a slight emphasis and a 
curled lip, “ is a gentleman and a Frenchman. This 
Pepin, who is his delegate, we must bribe, or menace 
to our will.” 

“Assuredly,” answered Savelli, “it is not a difficult 
task ; for Montreal calculated on a more stubborn con- 
test, which he himself would have found leisure to 
close — ” 

“ As Podesta, or Prince of Eome, — the modest man ! 
We Frenchmen have a due sense of our own merits; 
but this sudden victory surprises him as it doth us, 
Luca; and we shall wrest the prey from Pepin, ere 
Montreal can come to his help ! But Eienzi must die. 
He is still, I hear, shut up in St. Angelo. The Orsini 
shall storm him there ere the day be much older. To- 
day we possess the Capitol; annul all the rebel’s 
laws, break up his ridiculous Parliament, and put all 
the government of the city under three senators , — 
Einaldo Orsini, Colonna, and myself. You, my lord, I 
trust, we shall fitly provide for.” 

“ Oh ! I am rewarded enough by returning to my 
palace; and a descent on the jewellers’ quarter will 
soon build up its fortifications. Luca Savelli is not 
an ambitious man. He wants but to live in peace.” 

The cardinal smiled sourly , and took the turn towards 
the .Capitol. 

In the front space the usual gapers were assembled. 
“Make way, make way, knaves!” cried the guards, 
trampling on either side the crowd, who, accustomed 
to the sedate and courteous order of Eienzi’s guard, fell 
back too slowly for many of them to escape severe injury 
from the pikes of the soldiers and the hoofs of the horses. 
Our friend Luigi the butcher was one of these; and 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


61 


the surliness of the Eoman blood was past boiling-heat 
when he received in his ample stomach the blunt end of 
a German’s pike. “There, Koman,” said the rude 
mercenary, in his barbarous attempt at Italian, “make 
way for your betters ; you have had enough crowds and 
shows of late, in all conscience.” 

“ Betters ! ” gulped out the poor butcher ; “ a Eoman 
has no betters; and if I had not lost two brothers, by 
San Lorenzo, I would — ” 

“The dog is mutinous,” said one of the followers of 
the Orsini, succeeding the German who had passed on, 
“ and talks of San Lorenzo ! ” 

“ Oh ! ” said another Orsinist, who rode abreast, “ I 
remember him of old. He was one of Eienzi’s gang.” 

“ Was he? ” said the other, sternly; “ then we cannot 
begin salutary examples too soon;” and, offended at 
something swaggering and insolent in the butcher’s 
look, the Orsinist coolly thrust him through the heart 
with his pike, and rode on over his body. 

“ Shame ! shame ! ” “ Murder ! murder ! ” cried the 

crowd; and they began to press, in the passion of the 
moment, round the fierce guards. 

The legate heard the cry, and saw the rush; he turned 
pale. “ The rascals rebel again ! ” he faltered. 

“ No, your eminence, — no,” said Luca; “ but it may 
be as well to infuse a wholesome terror. They are all 
unarmed; let me bid the guards disperse them. A 
word. will do it.” 

The cardinal assented, the word was given; and in a 
few minutes the soldiery, who still smarted under the 
vindictive memory of defeat from an undisciplined 
multitude, scattered the crowd down the streets with- 
out scruple or mercy, — riding over some, spearing 
others; filling the air with shrieks and yells, and 


62 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


strewing the ground with almost as many men as a 
few days before would have sufficed to have guarded 
Rome and preserved the constitution! Through this 
wild, tumultuous scene, and over the bodies of its 
victims, rode the legate and his train, to receive in 
the Hall of the Capitol the allegiance of the citizens, 
and to proclaim the return of the oppressors. 

As they dismounted at the stairs, a placard in large 
letters struck the eye of the legate. It was placed upon 
the pedestal of the Lion of Basalt, covering the very 
place that had been occupied by the bull of excommuni- 
cation. The words were few, and ran thus: — 

“Tremble! Rienzi shall return!” 

“ How ! what means this mummery ? ” cried the legate, 
trembling already, and looking round to the nobles. 

“ Please your eminence,” said one of the councillors, 
who had come from the Capitol to meet the legate, “ we 
saw it at daybreak, the ink yet moist, as we entered the 
hall. We deemed it best to leave it for your eminence 
to deal with.” 

“ You deemed! Who are you^ then? ” 

“ One of the members of the council, your eminence, 
and a stanch opponent of the Tribune, as is well known, 
when he wanted the new tax — ” 

“ Council, — trash ! No more councils now ! Order 
is restored at last. The Orsini and the Colonna will 
look to you in future. Resist a tax, did you? Well, 
that was right when proposed by a tyrant ; hut 1 warn 
you, friend, to take care how you resist the tax loe shall 
impose. Happy if your city can buy its peace with the 
Church on any terms; and his holiness is short of the 
florins.” 

The discomfited councillor shrunk back. 

“ Tear off yon insolent placard. Nay, hold! flx over 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


63 


it our proclamation of ten thousand florins for the here- 
tic’s head ! Ten thousand ? methinks that is too much 
noWf — we will alter the cipher. Meanwhile Rinaldo 
Orsini, lord senator, march thy soldiers to St. Angelo; 
let us see if the heretic can stand a siege.” 

“It needs not, your eminence,” said the councillor, 
again ofi&ciously hustling up ; “ St. Angelo is surren- 
dered. The Tribune, his wife, and one page escaped 
last night, it is said, in disguise.” 

“Ha!” said the old Colonna, whose dulled sense 
had at length arrived at the conclusion that something 
extraordinary arrested the progress of his friends. 
“What is the matter? What is that placard? Will 
no one tell me the words? My old eyes are dim.” 

As he uttered the questions in the shrill and piercing 
treble of age, a voice replied in a loud and deep tone, 
— none knew whence it came; the crowd was reduced 
to a few stragglers, chiefly friars in cowl and serge, 
whose curiosity naught could daunt, and whose garb 
insured them safety; the soldiers closed the rear: a 
voice, I say, came, startling the color from many a cheek, 
in answer to the Colonna, saying, — 

“ Tremble ! Eienzi shall return 1 ” 


v 


BOOK VI. 


THE PLAGUE. 

Erano gli anni della fruttifera Incarnazione del Figliuolo di Dio 
al numero pervenuti di mille trecento quaraut’otto, quando nell’ 
egregia citta di Fiorenza, oltre ad ogni altra Italica bellissima, per- 
venne la mortifera pestilenza. — Boccaccio, Introduzione al Deca- 
merone. 

The years of the fructiferous Incarnation of the Son of God had 
reached the number of one thousand three hundred and forty-eight, 
when into the illustrious city of Florence, beautiful beyond every 
other in Italy, entered the death-fraught pestilence. — Introduction 
to the Decameron, 


VOL. II. — 5 




BOOK VI. 


CHAPTER I. 

The Retreat of the Lover. 

By the borders of one of the fairest lakes of Northern 
Italy stood the favorite mansion of Adrian di Gastello, 
to which in his softer and less patriotic moments his 
imagination had often and fondly turned, and thither 
the young nobleman, dismissing his more courtly and 
distinguished companions in the Neapolitan embassy, 
retired after his ill-starred return to Rome. Most of 
those thus dismissed joined the barons; the young 
Annibaldi, whose daring and ambitious nature had 
attached him strongly to the Tribune, maintained a 
neutral ground; he betook himself to his castle in the 
Campagna, and did not return to Rome till the expul- 
sion of Rienzi. 

The retreat of Irene’s lover was one well fitted to feed 
his melancholy reveries. Without being absolutely a 
fortress, it was sufficiently strong to resist any assault 
of the mountain robbers or petty tyrants in the vicinity ; 
while, built by some former lord from the materials of 
the half-ruined villas of the ancient Romans, its mar- 
bled columns and tessellated pavements relieved with a 
wild grace the gray stone walls and massive towers of 
feudal masonry. Rising from a green eminence gently 
sloping to the lake, the stately pile cast its shadow far 


68 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


and dark over the beautiful waters; by its side, from 
the high and wooded mountains on the background, 
broke a waterfall , in irregular and sinuous course , — 
now hid by the foliage, now gleaming in the light, and 
collecting itself at last in a broad basin : beside which 
a little fountain, inscribed with half-obliterated letters, 
attested the departed elegance of the classic age, — some 
memento of lord and poet whose very names were lost; 
thence descending through mosses and lichen and odor- 
ous herbs, a brief, sheeted stream bore its surplus into 
the lake. And there, amidst the sturdier and bolder 
foliage of the North, grew, wild and picturesque, many 
a tree transplanted, in ages back, from the sunnier East; 
not blighted nor stunted in that golden clime, which 
fosters almost every produce of Nature as with a mother’s 
care. The place was remote and solitary. The roads 
that conducted to it from the distant towns were tangled, 
intricate, mountainous, and beset by robbers. A few 
cottages and a small convent, a quarter of a league up 
the verdant margin, were the nearest habitations; and, 
save by some occasional pilgrim or some bewildered 
traveller, the loneliness of the mansion was rarely 
invaded. It was precisely the spot which proffered 
rest to a man weary of the world, and indulged the 
memories which grow in rank luxuriance over the 
wrecks of passion; and he whose mind, at once 
gentle and self-dependent, can endure solitude, might 
have ransacked all earth for a more fair and undisturbed 
retreat. 

But not to such a solitude had the earlier dreams of 
Adrian dedicated the place. Here had he thought — 
should one bright being have presided — here should 
love have found its haven; and hither, when love at 
length admitted of intrusion, hither might wealth and 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


69 


congenial culture have invited all the gentler and better 
spirits which had begun to move over the troubled face 
of Italy, promising a second and younger empire of 
poesy and lore and art. To the graceful and romantic 
hut somewhat pensive and inert temperament of the 
young noble, more adapted to calm and civilized than 
stormy and barbarous times, ambition proffered no reward 
so grateful as lettered leisure and intellectual repose. 
His youth colored by the influence of Petrarch, his 
manhood had dreamed of a happier Vaucluse not un ten- 
anted by a Laura. The visions which had connected 
the scene with the image of Irene made the place still 
haunted by her shade ; and time and absence only min- 
istering to his impassioned meditations, deepened his 
melancholy and increased his love. 

In this lone retreat, — which even in describing from 
memory , for these eyes have seen, these feet have trodden, 
this heart yet yearneth for, the spot, — which even I 
say, in thus describing, seems to me (and haply also to 
the gentle reader) a grateful and welcome transit from 
the storms of action and the vicissitudes of ambition, 
so long engrossing the narrative, — in this lone retreat 
Adrian passed the winter, which visits with so mild a 
change that intoxicating clime. The roar of the world 
without was borne but in faint and indistinct murmur- 
ings to his ear. He learned only imperfectly, and with 
many contradictions, the news which broke like a thun- 
derbolt over Italy: that the singular and aspiring man 

himself a revolution — who had excited the interest 

of all Europe, the brightest hopes of the enthusiastic, 
the profusest adulation of the great, the deepest terror 
of the despot, the wildest aspirations of all free spirits, 
had been suddenly stricken from his state, his name 
branded, and his head proscribed. This event, which 


70 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

happened at the end of December, reached Adrian, 
through a wandering pilgrim, at the commencement of 
March, somewhat more than two months after the date, 
— the March of that awful year 1348, which saw 
Europe, and Italy especially, desolated by the direst 
pestilence which history has recorded, accursed alike by 
the numbers and the celebrity of its victims, and yet 
strangely connected with some not unpleasing images by 
the grace of Boccaccio and the eloquence of Petrarch. 

The pilgrim who informed Adrian of the revolution 
at Rome was unable to give him any clew to the present 
fate of Rienzi or his family. It was only known that 
the Tribune and his wife had escaped, none knew 
whither; many guessed that they were already dead, 
victims to the numerous robbers who immediately on 
the fall of the Tribune settled back to their former 
habits, sparing neither age nor sex, wealth nor poverty. 
As all relating to the ex-Tribune was matter of eager 
interest, the pilgrim had also learned that, previous to 
the fall of Rienzi , his sister had left Rome ; but it was 
not known to what place she had been conveyed. 

The news utterly roused Adrian from his dreaming 
life. Irene was then in the condition his letter dared 
to picture, — severed from her brother, fallen from her 
rank, desolate and friendless. “Now,” said the gen- 
erous and high-hearted lover, “ she may be mine without 
a disgrace to my name. Whatever Rienzi’s faults, she 
is not implicated in them. Her hands are not red with 
my kinsman’s blood; nor can men say that Adrian di 
Gastello allies himself with a house whose power is built 
upon the ruins of the Colonnas. The Colonna are 
restored, — again triumphant; Rienzi is nothing: dis- 
tress and misfortune unite me at once to her on whom 
they fall ! ” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


71 


But how were these romantic resolutions to be exe- 
cuted , — Irene’s dwelling-place unknown 1 He resolved 
himself to repair to Rome and make the necessary- 
inquiries. Accordingly he summoned his retainers: 
blithe tidings to them, those of travel ! The mail left 
the armory, the banner the hall, and after two days of 
animated bustle the fountain by which Adrian had 
passed so many hours of reverie was haunted only by 
the birds of the returning spring; and the nightly lamp 
no longer cast its solitary ray from his turret-chamber 
over the bosom of the deserted lake. 


72 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTER II. 

The Seeker. 

It was a bright, oppressive, sultry morning, when a 
solitary horseman was seen winding that unequalled 
road, from whose height, amidst fig-trees, vines, and 
olives, the traveller beholds gradually break upon his 
gaze the enchanting valley of the Arno, and the spires 
and domes of Florence. But not with the traveller’s 
customary eye of admiration and delight passed that 
solitary horseman, and not upon the usual activity and 
mirth and animation of the Tuscan life broke that 
noonday sun. All was silent, void, and hushed; and 
even in the light of heaven there seemed a sicklied and 
ghastly glare. The cottages by the roadside were some 
shut up and closed, some open, but seemingly inmate - 
less. The plough stood still, the distaff plied not; 
horse and man had a dreary holiday. There was a 
darker curse upon the land than the curse of Cain ! 
Now and then a single figure, usually clad in the 
gloomy robe of a friar, crossed the road, lifting towards 
the traveller a livid and amazed stare, and then hurried 
on, and vanished beneath some roof, whence issued a 
faint and dying moan, which but for the exceeding 
stillness around could scarcely have pierced the thresh- 
old. As the traveller neared the city, the scene’became 
less solitary, yet more dread. There might be seen 
carts and litters, thick awnings wrapped closely round 
them, containing those who sought safety in flight, 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


73 


forgetful that the plague was everywhere ! And while 
these gloomy vehicles, conducted by horses, gaunt, 
shadowy skeletons, crawling heavily along, passed by, 
like hearses of the dead, sometimes a cry burst the 
silence in which they moved, and the traveller’s steed 
started aside, as some wretch, on whom the disease had 
broke forth , was dropped from the vehicle by the selfish 
inhumanity of his comrades, and left to perish by the 
way. Hard by the gate a wagon paused, and a man 
with a mask threw out its contents in a green, slimy 
ditch that bordered the road. These were garments and 
robes of all kind and value; the broidered mantle of 
the gallant, the hood and veil of my lady, and the rags 
of the peasant. While glancing at the labor of the 
masker, the cavalier beheld a herd of swine, gaunt and 
half famished, run to the spot in the hopes of food, and 
the traveller shuddered to think what food they might 
have anticipated! But ere he reached the gate, those 
of the animals that had been busiest rooting at the 
infectious heap, dropped down dead amongst their 
fellows.^ 

“Ho, ho!” said the masker, and his hollow voice 
sounded yet more hollow through his vizard, — “ comest 
thou here to die, stranger? See, thy brave mantle 
of triple pile and golden broidery will not save thee 
from the gavocciolo.^ Ride on, ride on: to-day fit 
morsel for thy lady’s kiss, to-morrow too foul for the 
rat and worm ! ” 

Replying not to this hideous welcome, Adrian, for it 
was he, pursued his way. The gates stood wide open: 
this was the most appalling sign of all, for at first the 

1 The same spectacle greeted, and is recorded by Boccaccio. 

2 The tumor that made the fatal symptom. 


74 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TEIBUNES. 


most jealous precaution had been taken against the 
ingress of strangers. Now all care, all foresight, all 
vigilance, were vain; and thrice nine warders had died 
at that single post, and the officers to appoint their 
successors were dead too ! Law and police , and the 
tribunals of health, and the boards of safety, — death 
had stopped them all ! And the plague killed art itself, 
social union, the harmony and mechanism of civiliza- 
tion, as if they had been bone and flesh ! 

So, mute and solitary, went on the lover, in his quest 
of love, resolved to find and to save his betrothed, and 
guided (that faithful and loyal knight!) through the 
Wilderness of Horror by the blessed hope of that strange 
passion, noblest of all when noble, basest of all when 
base ! He came into a broad and spacious square lined 
with palaces, the usual haunt of the best and most 
graceful nobility of Italy. The stranger was alone 
now, and the tramp of his gallant steed sounded ghastly 
and fearful in his own ears, when just as he turned the 
corner of one of the streets that led from it, he saw 
a woman steal forth with a child in her arms, while 
another, yet in infancy, clung to her robe. She held 
a large bunch of flowers to her nostrils (the fancied and 
favorite mode to prevent infection), and muttered to the 
children, who were moaning with hunger, “Yes, yes, 
you shall have food! Plenty of food now for the stir- 
ring forth. But oh , that stirring forth ! ” — and she 
peered about and around, lest any of the diseased might 
be near. 

“My friend,” said he, “can you direct me to the 
convent of — ” 

“ Away, man, away ! ” shrieked the woman. 

“ Alas ! ” said Adrian, with a mournful smile, “ can you 
not see that I am not, as yet, one to spread contagion 1 ” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


75 


But the woman, unheeding him, fled on; when, after 
a few paces, she was arrested by the child that clung to 
her. 

“ Mother, mother ! ” it cried, “ I am sick, — I cannot 
stir. ” 

The woman halted, tore aside the child's robe, saw 
under the arm the fatal tumor, and, deserting her own 
flesh, fled with a shriek along the square. The shriek 
rang long in Adrian's ears, though not aware of the 
unnatural cause, — the mother feared not for her infant^ 
hut herself. The voice of Nature was no more heeded 
in that charnel city than it is in the tomb itself ! Adrian 
rode on at a brisker pace, and came at length before a 
stately church; its doors were wide open, and he saw 
within a company of monks (the church had no other 
worshippers, and they were masked) gathered round the 
altar, and chanting the Miserere Domine, — the minis- 
ters of God, in a city hitherto boasting the devoutest 
population in Italy, without a flock. 

The young cavalier paused before the door, and waited 
till the service was done, and the monks descended the 
steps into the street. 

“Holy fathers!” said he then, “may I pray your 
goodness to tell me my nearest way to the convent Santa 
Maria de' Pazzi ? ” 

“Son,” said one of these featureless spectres, for so 
they seemed in their shroud-like robes and uncouth 
vizards, — “son, pass on your way, and God be with 
you 1 Bobbers or revellers may now fill the holy clois- 
ters you speak of. The abbess is dead, and many a 
sister sleeps with her. And the nuns have fled from 
the contagion.” 

Adrian half fell from his horse; and as he still 
remained rooted to the spot, the dark procession swept 


76 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


■ on, hymning in solemn dirge through the desolate street 
the monastic chant, — 

“ By the Mother and the Son, 

Death endured, and mercy won; 

Spare us, sinners though we he ; 

Miserere, Domine / ” 

Eecovering from his stupor, Adrian regained the^ 
brethren, and, as they closed the burden of their song, 
again accosted them. 

“ Holy fathers, dismiss me not thus. Perchance the 
one I seek may yet be heard of at the convent. Tell 
me which way to shape my course. ” 

“ Disturb us not, son, ” said the monk who spoke 
before. “ It is an ill omen for thee to break thus upon 
the invocations of the ministers of Heaven. ” 

“Pardon, pardon! I will do ample penance, pay 
many masses ; but I seek a dear friend, — the way , the 
way — ” 

“ To the right till you gain the first bridge. Beyond 
the third bridge, on the river side, you will find the 
convent,” said another monk, moved by the earnestness 
of Adrian. 

“Bless you, holy father,” faltered forth the cavalier, 
and spurred his steed in the direction given. The friars 
heeded him not, but again resumed their dirge. Min- 
gled with the sound of his horse’s hoofs on the clattering 
pavement, came to the rider’s ear the imploring line,- — 

“ Miserere, Domine! " 

Impatient, sick at heart, desperate, Adrian flew 
through the streets at the full speed of his horse. 
He passed • the market-place , — it was empty as the 
desert: the gloomy and barricadoed streets, in which 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


77 


the counter cries of Guelf and Ghibelline had so often 
cheered on the chivalry and rank of Florence. Now 
huddled together in vault and pit, lay Guelf and 
Ghibelline, knightly spurs and beggar's crutch. To 
that silence the roar even of civil strife would have 
been a blessing ! The first bridge, the river side, the 
second, the third bridge, all were gained, and Adrian 
at last reined his steed before the walls of the convent. 
He fastened his steed to the porch, in which the door 
stood ajar, half torn from its hinges, traversed the court, 
gained the opposite door that admitted to the main 
building, came to the jealous grating, now no more a 
harrier from the profane world, and as he there paused 
a moment to recover breath and nerve, wild laughter 
and loud song, interrupted and mixed with oaths, star- 
tled his ear. He pushed aside the grated door, entered, 
and led by the sounds canie to the refectory. In that 
meeting-place of the severe and mortified maids of 
heaven, he now beheld gathered round the upper table, 
used of yore by the abbess, a strange, disorderly, ruffian 
herd, who at first glance seemed indeed of all ranks, for 
some wore serge, or even rags, others were tricked out 
in all the bravery of satin and velvet, plume and mantle. 
But a second glance sufficed to indicate that the com- 
panions were much of the same degree, and that the 
finery of the more showy was but the spoil rent from 
unguarded palaces or tenantless bazaars; for under 
plumed hats, looped with jewels, were grim, unwashed, 
unshaven faces, over which hung the long locks which 
the professed brethren of the sharp knife and hireling 
arm had just begun to assume, serving them often 
instead of a mask. Amidst these savage revellers were 
many women, young and middle-aged, foul and fair; 
and Adrian piously shuddered to see amongst the loose 


78 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

robes and uncovered necks of the professional harlots 
the saintly habit and beaded rosary of nuns. Flasks 
of wine, ample viands, gold and silver vessels, mostly 
consecrated to holy rites, strewed the board. As the 
young Roman paused spell-bound at the threshold, the 
man who acted as president of the revel, — a huge, swarthy 
ruffian, with a deep scar over his face, which , traversing 
the whole of the left cheek and upper lip, gave his large 
features an aspect preternaturally hideous, — called out 
to him, — 

“Come in, man, come in! Wliy stand you there 
amazed and dumb? We are hospitable revellers, and 
give all men welcome. Here are wine and women, — 
my lord bishop’s wine and my lady abbess’s women! 

“ Sing hey, sing ho, for the royal Death, 

That scatters a host with a single breath ; 

That opens the prison to spoil the palace, 

And rids honest necks from the hangman’s malice. 

Here ’s a health to the Plague ! Let the mighty ones dread ; 
The poor never lived till the wealthy were dead. 

A health to the Plague ! may she ever as now 

Loose the rogue from his chain and the nun from her vow; 

To the gaoler a sword, to the captive a key, 

Hurrah for Earth's curse, — ’tis a blessing to me 1 ” 

Ere this fearful stave was concluded, Adrian, sensible 
that in such orgies there was no chance of prosecuting 
his inquiries, left the desecrated chamber and fled, 
scarcely drawing breath, so great was the terror that 
seized him, till he stood once more in the court amidst 
the hot, sickly, stagnant sunlight that seemed a fit 
atmosphere for the scenes on which it fell. He resolved, 
however, not to desert the place without making another 
effort at inquiry ; and while he stood without the court, 
musing and doubtful, he saw a small chapel hard by, 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


79 


through whose long casement gleamed faintly, and 
dimmed by the noonday, the light of tapers. He 
turned towards its porch, entered, and saw beside the 
sanctuary a single nun kneeling in prayer. In the 
narrow aisle, upon a long table (at either end of which 
burned the tall dismal tapers whose rays had attracted 
him), the drapery of several shrouds showed him the 
half-distinct outline of human figures hushed in death. 
Adrian himself, impressed by the sadness and sanctity 
of the place, and the touching sight of that solitary and 
unselfish watcher of the dead, knelt down and intensely 
prayed. 

As he rose, somewhat relieved from the burden at his 
heart, the nun rose also, and started to perceive him. 

“ Unhappy man! ” said she, in a voice which, low, 
faint, and solemn, sounded as a ghost’s, “ what fatality 
brings thee hither ? Seest thou not thou art in the pres- 
ence of clay which the plague hath touched, — thou 
breathest the air which destroys I Hence ! and search 
throughout all the dssolation for one spot where the 
dark visitor hath not come ! ” 

“ Holy maiden,” answered Adrian, “the danger you 
hazard does not appall me; I seek one whose life is 
dearer than my own.” 

“ Thou needest say no more to tell me thou art newly 
come to Florence! Here son forsakes his father, and 
mother deserts her child. When life is most hopeless, 
these worms of a day cling to it as if it were the salva- 
tion of immortality! But for me alone, death has no 
horror. Long severed from the world, I have seen my 
sisterhood perish, the house of God desecrated, its altar 
overthrown; and I care not to survive, — the last whom 
the pestilence leaves at once unperjured and alive.” 

The nun paused a few moments, and then, looking 


80 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


earnestly at the healthful countenance and unbroken 
frame of Adrian, sighed heavily. “ Stranger, why fly 
you not?” she said. “Thou mightst as well search 
the crowded vaults and rotten corruption of the dead, 
as search the city for one living.” 

“ Sister, and bride of the blessed Kedeemer! ” returned 
the Eoman, clasping his hands, — “ one word, I im- 
plore thee. Thou art, methinks, of the sisterhood 
of yon dismantled convent; tell me, knowest thou if 
Irene di Gabrini ^ — guest of the late abbess, sister of 
the fallen Tribune of Kome — be yet amongst the 
living ? ” 

“ Art thou her brother, then ? ” said the nun. “ Art 
thou that fallen Sun of the Morning ? ” 

“I am her betrothed,” replied Adrian, sadly. 
“ Speak! ” 

“Oh, flesh! flesh! how art thou victor to the last, 
even amidst the triumphs and in the lazar-house of 
corruption!” said the nun. “Vain man! think not of 
such carnal ties; make thy peace with Heaven, for thy 
days are surely numbered I ” 

“Woman!” cried Adrian, impatiently, “talk not 
to me of myself, nor rail against ties whose holiness 
thou canst not know. I ask thee again, as thou thyself 
hopest for mercy and for pardon, is Irene living ? ” 

The nun was awed by the energy of the young lover, 
and after a moment, which seemed to him an age of 
agonized suspense, she replied, — 

“The maiden thou speakest of died not with the 
general death. In the dispersion of the few remain- 
ing, she left the convent, — I know not whither; but 
she had friends in Florence, — their names I cannot tell 
thee.” 

^ Tb® family name of Rienzi was Gabrini. 


81 


\ 

RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

“Now bless thee, holy sister! bless thee! How long 
since she left the convent 1 

“ Four days have passed since the robber and the 
harlot have seized the house of Santa Maria,” replied 
the nun, groaning; “and they were quick successors to 
the sisterhood. ” 

“ Four days! — and thou canst give me no clew ? ” 

“None, — yet stay, young man!” and the nun, 
approaching, lowered her voice to a hissing whisper, — 
“ ask the Becchini. ” ^ 

Adrian started aside, crossed himself hastily, and 
quitted the convent without answer. He returned to 
his horse, and rode back into the silenced heart of the 
city. Tavern and hotel there were no more; but the 
palaces of dead princes were free to the living stranger. 
He entered one, — a spacious and splendid mansion. In 
the stables he found forage still in the manger; but the 
horses, at that time in the Italian cities a proof of rank 
as well as wealth, were gone with the hands that fed 
them. The high-born knight assumed the office of 
groom, took off the heavy harness, fastened his steed 
to the rack ; and as the wearied animal, unconscious of 
the surrounding horrors, fell eagerly upon its meal, its 
young lord turned away, and muttered, “ Faithful ser- 
vant and sole companion! may the pestilence that 
spareth neither beast nor man, spare thee ! and mayest 
thou bear me hence with a lighter heart! ” 

A spacious hall, hung with arms and banners, — a 

1 According to the usual custom of Florence, the dead were borne 
to their resting-place on biers, supported by citizens of equal rank *, 
but a new trade was created by the plague, and men of the loAvest 
dregs of the populace, bribed by immense payment, discharged 
the office of transporting the remains of the victims. These were 
called Becchini. 

VOL. II. — 6 


82 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


wide flight of marble stairs, whose walls were painted 
in the stiff outlines and gorgeous colors of the day, — 
conducted to vast chambers, hung with velvets and 
cloth -of -gold, hut silent as the tomb. He threw him- 
self upon the cushions which were piled in the centre 
of the room, for he had ridden far that morning and 
for many days before, and he was wearied and exhausted, 
body and limb; but he could not rest. Impatience, 
anxiety, hope, and fear gnawed his heart and fevered 
his veins, and after a brief and unsatisfactory attempt 
to sober his own thoughts, and devise some plan of 
search more certain than that which chance might afford 
him, he rose, and traversed the apartments, in the unac- 
knowledged hope which chance alone could suggest. 

It was easy to see that he had made his resting-place 
in the home of one of the princes of the land ; and the 
splendor of all around him far outshone the barbarous 
and rude magnificence of the less civilized and wealthy 
Komans. Here lay the lute as last touched, — the gilded 
and illumined volume as last conned; there were seats 
drawn familiarly together, as when lady and gallant had 
interchanged whispers last. 

“And such,” thought Adrian, — “such desolation 
may soon swallow up the vestige of the unwelcomed 
guest as of the vanished lord! ” 

At length he entered a saloon, in which was a table 
still spread with wine-flasks, goblets of glass, and one 
of silver, withered flowers, half-mouldy fruits, and 
viands. At one side the arras, folding-doors opened 
to a broad flight of stairs, that descended to a little 
garden at the back of the house, and in which a foun- 
tain still played sparkling and livingly, — the only 
thing, save the stranger, living there! On the steps 
lay a crimson mantle, and by it a lady’s glove. The 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


83 


relics seemed to speak to the lover’s heart of a lover’s 
last wooing and last farewell. He groaned aloud, and 
feeling he should have need of all his strength, filled 
one of the goblets from a half-emptied flask /of Cyprus 
wine. He drained the draught, — it revived him. 
“How,’^ he said, “ once more to my task! I will sally 
forth,” when suddenly he heard heavy steps along 
the rooms he had quitted. They approached, they 
entered; and Adrian beheld two huge and ill-omened 
forms stalk into the chamber. They were wrapped in 
black homely draperies, their arms were hare, and they 
wore large, shapeless masks, which descended to the 
breast, leaving only access to sight and breath in three 
small and circular apertures. The Colonna half drew 
his sword, for the forms and aspects of these visitors 
were not such as men think to look upon in safety. 

“ Oh,” said one, “ the palace has a new guest to-day. 
Fear us not, stranger; there is room — ay, and wealth 
enough, for all men now in Florence ! Per Bacco ! but 
there is still one goblet of silver left, — how comes 
that ? ” So saying, the man seized the cup which 
Adrian had just drained, and thrust it into his breast. 
He then turned to Adrian, whose hand was still upon 
his hilt, and said, with a laugh which came choked and 
muffled through his vizard, “ Oh, we cut no throats, 
signor: the Invisible spares us that trouble. We are 
honest men, state officers, and come hut to see if the 
cart should halt here to-night.” 

“Ye are then — ” 

“ Becchini ! ” 

Adrian’s blood ran cold. The Becchino continued, 

“ And keep you this house while you rest at Florence, 
signor 1 ” 

“Yes, if the rightful lord claim it not.” 


84 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“Ha! ha! ‘rightful lord!’ The Plague is lord of 
all now! Why, I have known three gallant companies 
tenant this place the last week, and have buried them 
all, — all ! It is a pleasant house enough, and gives 
good custom. Are you alone ? ” 

“ At present, yes.” 

“ Show us where you sleep, that we may know where 
to come for you. You won’t want us these three days, 
I see.” 

“Ye are pleasant welcomers!” said Adrian j “but 
listen to me. Can ye find the living as well as bury 
the dead ? I seek one in this city who, if you discover 
her, shall be worth to you a year of burials.” 

“ Ho, no ! that is out of our line. As well look for 
a dropped sand on the beach as for a living being 
amongst closed houses and yawning vaults; but if you 
will pay the poor gravediggers beforehand, I promise 
you you shall have the first of a new charnel-house, — 
it will be finished just about your time.” 

“ There ! ” said Adrian, flinging the wretches a few 
pieces of gold, — “ there ! and if you would do me a 
kinder service, leave me at least while living ; or I may 
save you that trouble.” And he turned from the room. 

The Becchino who had been spokesman followed him. 
“ You are generous, signor, stay; you will want fresher 
food than these filthy fragments. I will supply thee of 
the best, while — while thou wantest it. And hark, — 
whom wishest thou that I should seek ? ” 

This question arrested Adrian’s departure. He 
detailed the name and all the particulars he could 
suggest of Irene; and, with sickened heart, described 
the hair, features, and stature of that ‘lovely and hal- 
lowed image, which might furnish a theme to the poet, 
and now gave a clew to the gravedigger. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OE THE TRIBUNES. 


85 


The unhallowed apparition shook his head when 
Adrian had concluded. “ Full five hundred such 
descriptions did I hear in the first days of the Plague, 
when there were still such things as mistress and lover; 
hut it is a dainty catalogue, signor, and it will be a 
pride to the poor Becchino to discover or even to bury 
so many charms! I will do my best; meanwhile I can 
recommend you, if in a hurry to make the best use of 
your time, to many a pretty face and comely shape — ” 

“ Out, fiend I ” muttered Adrian ; “ fool to waste time 
with such as thou! ” 

The laugh of the gravedigger followed his steps. 

All that day did Adrian wander through the city ; but 
search and question were alike unavailing. All whom he 
encountered and interrogated seemed to regard him as a 
madman, and these were indeed of no kind likely to 
advance his object. Wild troops of disordered, drunken 
revellers, processions of monks, or, here and there, scat- 
tered individuals gliding rapidly along, and shunning 
all approach or speech, made the only haunters of the 
dismal streets, till the sun sunk, lurid and yellow, 
behind the hills, and darkness closed around the noise- 
less pathway of the Pestilence. 


86 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTEK III. 

The Flowers amidst the Tombs. 

Adrian found that the Becchino had taken care that 
famine should not forestall the Plague; the banquet 
of the dead was removed, and fresh viands and wines 
of all kinds — for there was plenty then in Florence 
— spread the table. He partook of the refreshment, 
though but sparingly; and shrinking from repose in 
beds beneath whose gorgeous hangings Death had been 
so lately busy, carefully closed door and window, 
wrapped himself in his mantle, and found his resting- 
place on the cushions of the chamber in which he had 
supped. Fatigue cast him into an unquiet slumber, 
from which he was suddenly awakened by the roll of a 
cart below, and the jingle of bells. He listened, as the 
cart proceeded slowly from door to door, and at length 
its sound died away in the distance. He slept no more 
that night ! 

The sun had not long risen ere he renewed his labors ; 
and it was yet early when, just as he passed a church, 
two ladies richly dressed came from the porch, and 
seemed through their vizards to regard the young cava- 
lier with earnest attention. The gaze arrested him also, 
when one of the ladies said, “ Fair sir, you are over-bold : 
you wear no mask, neither do you smell to flowers. ” 

“ Lady, I wear no mask, for I would be seen : I search 
these miserable places for one in whose life I live. ” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TKIBUNES. 87 

“ He is young, comely, evidently noble, and the 
Plague hath not touched him : he will serve our purpose 
well,” whispered one of the ladies to the other. 

“You echo my own thoughts,” returned her com- 
panion; and then, turning to Adrian, she said, “You 
seek one you are not wedded to, if you seek so fondly 1 ” 

“It is true.” 

“ Young and fair, with dark hair and neck of snow: 
I will conduct you to her.” 

“Signora!” 

“ Follow us!” 

“ Know you who I am and whom I seek ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Can you in truth tell me aught of Irene 1 ” 

“ I can: follow me.” 

“ To her?” 

“ Yes, yes; follow us ! ” 

The ladies moved on, as if impatient of further 
parley. Amazed, doubtful, and as if in a dream, Adrian 
followed them. Their dress, manner, and the pure 
Tuscan of the one who had addressed him indicated 
them of birth and station; but all else was a riddle 
which he could not solve. 

They arrived at one of the bridges, where a litter and 
a servant on horseback, holding a palfrey by the bridle, 
were in attendance. The ladies entered the litter, and 
she who had before spoken bade Adrian follow on the 
palfrey. 

“ But tell me — ” he began. 

“No questions, cavalier,” said she, impatiently; 
“ follow the living in silence, or remain with the 
dead, as you list.” 

With that the litter proceeded, and Adrian mounted 
the palfrey wonderingly, and followed his strange con- 


88 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


ductors, who moved on at a tolerably brisk pace. They 
crossed the bridge, left the river on one side, and, soon 
ascending a gentle acclivity, the trees and flowers of the 
country began to succeed dull walls and empty streets. 
After proceeding thus somewhat less than half an hour, 
they turned up a green lane remote from the road, and 
came suddenly upon the porticos of a fair and stately 
palace. Here the ladies descended from their litter; 
and Adrian, who had vainly sought to extract speech 
from the attendant, also dismounted, and following 
them across a spacious court, filled on either side with 
vases of flowers and orange-trees, and then through a 
wide hall in the farther side of the quadrangle, found 
himself in one of the loveliest spots eye ever saw or 
poet ever sung. It was a garden-plot of the most 
emerald verdure ; bosquets of laurel and of myrtle 
opened on either side into vistas half overhung with 
clematis and rose, through whose arcades the prospect 
closed with statues and gushing fountains; in front, 
the lawn was bounded by rows of vases on marble 
pedestals filled with flowers; and broad and gradual 
flights of steps of the whitest marble led from terrace 
to terrace, each adorned with statues and fountains, half- 
way down a high but softly sloping and verdant hill. 
Beyond, spread in wide, various, and luxurious land- 
scape, the vineyards and olive-groves, the villas and 
villages, of the Vale of Arno, intersected by the silver 
river; while the city, in all its calm but without its 
horror, raised its roofs and spires to the sun. Birds of 
every hue and song, some free, some in network of 
golden wire, warbled round; and upon the centre of the 
sward reclined four ladies unmasked and richly dressed, 
the eldest of whom seemed scarcely more than twenty; 
and five cavaliers, young and handsome, whose jewelled 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


89 


vests and golden chains attested their degree. Wines 
and fruits were on a low table beside; and musical 
instruments, chess-boards, and gammon-tables lay scat- 
tered all about. So fair a group and so graceful a 
scene Adrian never beheld but once, and that was in 
the midst of the ghastly pestilence of Italy ! — such 
group and such scene our closet indolence may yet 
revive in the pages of the bright Boccaccio ! 

On seeing Adrian and his companions approach, the 
party rose instantly; and one of the ladies, who wore 
upon her head a wreath of laurel-leaves, stepping before 
the rest, exclaimed, “ Well done, my Mariana! welcome 
back, my fair subjects. And you, sir, welcome hither.” 

The two guides of the Colonna had by this time 
removed their masks; and the one who had accosted 
him, shaking her long and raven ringlets over a bright, 
laughing eye, and a cheek to whose native olive now 
rose a slight blush, turned to him ere he could reply to 
the welcome he had received. 

“ Signor cavalier,” said she, “you now see to what I 
have decoyed you. Own that this is pleasanter than 
the sights ’and sounds of the city we have left. You 
gaze on me in surprise. See, my queen, how speechless 
the marvel of your court has made our new gallant ; I 
assure you he could talk quickly enough when he had 
only us to confer with: nay, I was forced to impose 
silence on him.” 

“ Oh 1 then you have not yet informed him of the 
custom and origin of the court he enters 1 ” quoth she 
of the laurel-wreath. 

“No, my queen; I thought all description given in 
such a spot as our poor Florence now is, would fail of 
its object. My task is done, I resign him to your 
grace ! ” 


90 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


So saying, the lady tripped lightly away, and began 
coqnettishly sleeking her locks in the smooth mirror of 
a marble basin, whose waters trickled over the margin 
upon the grass below, ever and anon glancing archly 
towards the stranger, and sufficiently at hand to over- 
hear all that was said. 

“ In the first place, signor, permit us to inquire,” said 
the lady who bore the appellation of queen , “ thy name , 
rank, and birthplace.” 

“Madam,” returned Adrian, “I came hither little 
dreaming to answer questions respecting myself; but 
what it pleases you to ask, it must please me to reply 
to. My name is Adrian di Gastello, one of the Roman 
house of the Colonna.” 

“ A noble column of a noble house ! ” answered the 
queen. “ For us, respecting whom your curiosity ijiay 
perhaps be aroused, know that we six ladies of Florence, 
deserted by or deprived of our kin and protectors, formed 
the resolution to retire to this palace, where, if death 
comes, it comes stripped of half its horrors; and as the 
learned tell us that sadness engenders the awful malady, 
so you see us sworn foes to sadness. Six cavaliers of 
our acquaintance agreed to join us. We pass our days, 
whether many or few, in whatever diversions we can 
find or invent. Music and the dance, merry tales and 
lively songs, with such slight change of scene as from 
sward to shade, from alley to fountain, fill up our time, 
and prepare us for peaceful sleep and happy dreams. 
Each lady is by turns queen of our fairy court, as is my 
lot this day. One law forms the code of our constitu- 
tion, — that nothing sad shall be admitted. We would 
live as if yonder city were not, and as if ” (added the fair 
queen, with a slight sigh) “youth, grace, and beauty 
could endure forever. One of our knights madly left 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


91 


us for a day, promising to return : we have seen him no 
more; we will not guess what hath chanced to him. 
It became necessary to fill up his place ; we drew lots 
who should seek his substitute ; it fell upon the ladies 
who have — not, I trust, to your displeasure — brought 
you hither. Fair sir, my explanation is made.” 

“ Alas, lovely queen,” said Adrian, wrestling strongly 
but vainly with the bitter disappointment he felt, 
“ I cannot be one of your happy circle ; I am in myself 
a violation of your law. I am filled with but one sad 
and anxious thought, to which all mirth would seem 
impiety. I am a seeker amongst the living and the 
dead for one being of whose fate I am uncertain; and 
it was only by the words that fell from my fair con- 
ductor that I have been decoyed hither from my 
mournful task. Suffer me, gracious lady, to return to 
Florence. ” 

The queen looked in mute vexation towards the dark- 
eyed Mariana, who returned the glance by one equally 
expressive, and then suddenly stepping up to Adrian, 
she said, — 

“But, signor, if T should still keep my promise, if I 
should be able to satisfy thee of the health and safety 
of — of Irene. ” 

“ Irene ! ” echoed Adrian in surprise , forgetful at the 
moment that he had before revealed the name of her he 
sought, — “ Irene, — Irene di Gabrini, sister of the once- 
renowned Kienzi ! ” 

“ The same,” replied Mariana, quickly; “ I knew her, 
as I told you. Nay, signor, I do not deceive thee. It 
is true that I cannot bring thee to her; but better as it 
is, — she went away many days ago to one of the towns 
of Lombardy, which, they say, the pestilence has not 
yet pierced. Now, noble sir, is not your heart light* 


92 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


ened ; and will you so soon be a deserter from the Court 
of Loveliness, and perhaps,” she added, with a soft look 
from her large dark eyes, “ of Love 1 ” 

“Dare T, in truth, believe you, lady? ” said Adrian, 
all delighted, yet still half doubting. 

“ Would I deceive a true lover, as methinks you are? 
Be assured. Nay, queen, receive your subject.” 

The queen extended her hand to Adrian, and led him 
to the group that still stood on the grass at a little dis- 
tance. They welcomed him as a brother, and soon 
forgave his abstracted courtesies in compliment to his 
good mien and illustrious name. 

The queen clapped her hands, and the party again 
ranged themselves on the sward, each lady beside 
each gallant. “ You, Mariana, if not fatigued,” said 
the queen, “shall take the lute and silence these noisy 
grasshoppers, which chirp about us with as much pre- 
tension as if they were nightingales. Sing, sweet 
subject, sing; and let it be the song our dear friend 
Signor Visdomini ' made for a kind of inaugural anthem 
to such as we admitted to our court. ” 

Mariana, who had reclined herself by the side of 
Adrian, took up the lute, and after a short prelude 
sung the words thus imperfectly translated; — 


THE SONG OF THE FLORENTINE LADY. 

Enjoy the more the smiles of noon, 

If doubtful be the morrow ; 

And know the Fort of Life is soon 
Betray’d to death by Sorrow ! 

' I know not if this be the same Visdomini who, three years after- 
wards, with one of the Medici, conducted so gallant a reinforcement 
to Scarperia, then besieged by Visconti d’ Oleggio. 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 93 

Death claims us all : then, Grief, away ! 

We ’ll own no meaner master ; 

The clouds that darken round the day 
But bring the night the faster. 

Love, feast, be merry while on earth, — 

Such, Grave, should be thy moral ; 

Ev’n Death himself is friends with Mirth, 

And veils the tomb with laurel.^ / 

While gazing on the eyes T love, 

New life to mine is given, — 

If joy the lot of saints above, 

J oy fits us best for heaven. 

To this song, which was much applauded, succeeded 
those light and witty tales in which the Italian novel- 
ists furnished Voltaire and Marmontel with a model, 
— each, in his or her turn, taking up the discourse, and 
with an equal dexterity avoiding every lugubrious image 
or mournful reflection that might remind those graceful 
idlers of the vicinity of death. At any other time the 
temper and accomplishments of the young Lord di 
Gastello would have fitted him to enjoy and to shine in 
that Arcadian court; but now he in vain sought to 
dispel the gloom from his brow, and the anxious thought 
from his heart. He revolved the intelligence he had 
received, wondered, guessed, hoped, and dreaded still; 
and if for a moment his mind returned to the scene 
about him, his nature, too truly poetical for the false 
sentiment of the place, asked itself in what, save the 
polished exterior and the graceful circumstance, the 
mirth that he now so reluctantly witnessed differed 
from the brutal revels in the convent of Santa Maria: 

* At that time, in Italy, the laurel was frequently planted over 
the dead. 


94 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


each, alike in its motive, though so differing in the 
manner, — equally callous and equally selfish, coining 
horror into enjoyment. The fair Mariana, whose part* 
ner had been reft from her, as the queen had related, 
was in no mind to lose the new one she had gained. 
She pressed upon him from time to time the wine-flask 
and the fruits; and in those unmeaning courtesies her 
hand gently lingered u|)on his. At length the hour 
arrived when the companions retired to the palace, 
during the fiercer heats of noon, — to come forth again 
in the declining sun, to sup by the side of the fountain, 
to dance, to sing, and to make merry by torchlight and 
the stars till the hour of rest. But Adrian, not willing 
to continue the entertainment, no sooner found himself 
in the apartment to which he was conducted, than he 
resolved to effect a silent escape, as under all circum- 
stances the shortest, and not perhaps the least courteous, 
farewell left to him. Accordingly, when all seemed 
quiet and hushed in the repose common to the inhabi- 
tants of the South during that hour, he left his apart- 
ment, descended the stairs, passed the outer court, and 
was already at the gate, when he heard himself called 
by a voice that spoke vexation and alarm. He turned 
to behold Mariana. 

“ Why, how now. Signor di Gastello? Is our company 
so unpleasing, is our music so jarring, or are our brows 
so wrinkled, that you should fly as the traveller flies 
from the witches he surprises at Benevento ? Nay, you 
cannot mean to leave us yet ? ” 

"Fair dame,*’ returned the cavalier, somewhat, dis- 
concerted, “ it is in vain that I seek to rally my mourn- 
ful spirits or to fit myself for the court to which nothing 
sad should come. Your laws hang about me like a 
culprit, — better timely flight than harsh expulsion.’’ 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


95 


As he spoke he moved on, and would have passed the 
gate, but Mariana caught his arm. 

“ Nay,” said she, softly; “are there no eyes of dark 
light, and no neck of wintry snow, that can compensate 
to thee for the absent one ? Tarry and forget, as doubt- 
less in absence even thou art forgotten ! ” 

“Lady,” answered Adrian, with great gravity, not 
unmixed with an ill-suppressed disdain, “T have not 
sojourned long enough amidst the sights and sounds of 
woe to blunt my heart and spirit into callousness to all 
around. Enjoy, if thou canst, and, gather the rank roses 
of the sepulchre; but to me, haunted still by funeral 
images, beauty fails to bring delight, and love, even 
holy love, seems darkened by the shadow of death. 
Pardon me, and farewell.” 

“Go, then,” said the Florentine, stung and enraged 
at his coldness ; “ go and find your mistress amidst the 
associations on which it pleases your philosophy to 
dwell. I did but deceive thee, blind fool ! as I had 
hoped for thine own good, when I told thee Irene (was 
that her name?) was gone from Florence. Of her I 
know naught and heard naught, save from thee Go 
back and search the vault, and see whether thou lovest 
her still ! ” 


96 


BIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTER IV. 

We Obtain what we Seek, and know it not. 

In the fiercest heat of the day, and on foot, Adrian 
returned to Florence. As he approached the city, all 
that festive and gallant scene he had quitted seemed 
to him like a dream, a vision of the gardens and bowers 
of an enchantress, from which he woke abruptly as a 
criminal may wake on the morning of his doom to see 
the scaffold and the deathsman, — so much did each 
silent and lonely step into the funeral city bring back 
his bewildered thoughts at once to life and to death. 
The parting words of Mariana sounded like a knell at 
his heart. And now, as he passed on, — the heat of the 
day, the lurid atmosphere, long fatigue, alternate ex- 
haustion and excitement, combining with the sickness 
of disappointment, the fretting consciousness of precious 
moments irretrievably lost, and his utter despair of 
forming any systematic mode of search, — fever began 
rapidly to burn through his veins. His temples felt 
oppressed as with the weight of a mountain; his lips 
parched with intolerable thirst; his strength seemed 
suddenly to desert him ; and it was with pain and labor 
that he dragged one languid limb after the other. 

“ I feel it, ” thought he, with the loathing nausea and 
shivering dread with which nature struggles ever against 
death, “ I feel it upon me, — the Devouring and the 
Viewless. I shall perish, and without saving her; nor 
shall even one grave contain us ! ” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


97 


But these thoughts served rapidly to augment the 
disease which began to prey upon him; and ere he 
reached the interior of the city, even thought itself 
forsook him. The images of men and houses grew 
indistinct and shadowy before his eyes; the burning 
pavement became unsteady and reeling beneath his feet ; 
delirium gathered over him, and he went on his way 
muttering broken and incoherent words: the few who 
met fled from him in dismay. Even the monks, still 
continuing their solemn and sad processions, passed with 
a murmured hene vohis to the other side from that on 
which his steps swerved and faltered. And from a booth 
at the corner of a street, four Becchini, drinking together, 
fixed upon him from their black masks the gaze that 
vultures fix upon some dying wanderer of the desert. 
Still he crept on, stretching out his arms like a man in 
the dark, and seeking with the vague sense that yet 
struggled against the gathering delirium, to find out the 
mansion in which he had fixed his home ; though many 
as fair to live, and as meet to die in, stood with open 
portals before and beside his path. 

“ Irene, Irene ! ” he cried, sometimes in a muttered 
and low tone, sometimes in a wild and piercing shriek, 
“ where art thou ? Where 1 I come to snatch thee from 
them ; they shall not have thee, the foul and ugly fiends ! 
Pah! how the air smells of dead flesh! Irene, Irene! 
we will away to mine own palace and the heavenly lake, 
— Irene ! ” 

While thus benighted and thus exclaiming, two 
females suddenly emerged from a neighboring house, 
masked and mantled. 

“ Vain wisdom ! ” said the taller and slighter of the 
two, whose mantle, it is here necessary to observe, was 
of a deep blue, rich.lv UrAidored with silver, of a shape 
VOL. n. — 7 


98 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


and a color not common in Florence, but usual in Kome, 
where the dress of ladies of the higher rank was singularly 
bright in hue and ample in fold; thus differing from 
the simpler and more slender draperies of the Tuscan 
fashion, — “ vain wisdom, to fly a relentless and certain 
doom! ” 

“ Why, thou wouldst not have us hold the same home 
with three of the dead in the next chamber, — strangers 
too to us, — when Florence has so many empty halls? 
Trust me, we shall not walk far ere we suit ourselves 
with a safer lodgment.” 

“ Hitherto, indeed, we have been miraculously pre- 
served, ” sighed the other, whose voice and shape were 
those of extreme youth ; “ yet would that we knew 
where to fly, — what mount, what wood, what cavern, 
held my brother and his faithful Nina? I am sick 
with horrors! ” 

“Irene, Irene! Well then, if thou art at Milan or 
some Lombard town, why do I linger here ? To horse, 
to horse ! Oh, no, no ! — not the horse with the bells ! 
not the death-cart ! ” With a cry, a shriek, louder than 
the loudest of the sick man’s, broke that young female 
away from her companion. It seemed as if a single step 
took her to the side of Adrian. She caught his arm, 
she looked in his face, — she met his unconscious eyes 
bright with a fearful fire. “ It has seized him ! ” (she 
then said in a deep but calm tone), — “the Plague!” 

“ Away, away ! are you mad ? ” cried her companion ; 
“hence, hence, — touch me not now thou hast touched 
him ; go ! — here we part ! ” 

“ Help me to bear him somewhere ! See, he faints, he 
droops, he falls! Help me, dear signora, for pity, for 
the love of God ! ” 

But, wholly possessed by the selfish fear which over- 


HIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 99 

came all humanity in that miserable time, the elder 
woman, though naturally kind, pitiful, and benevolent, 
fled rapidly away, and soon vanished. Thus left alone 
with Adrian, who had now, in the fierceness of the fever 
that preyed within him, fallen on the ground, the 
strength and nerve of that young girl did not forsake 
her. She tore off the heavy mantel which encumbered 
her arms, and cast it from her; and then, lifting up the 
face of her lover, — for who but Irene was that weak 
woman, thus shrinking not from the contagion of death? 
— she supported him on her breast, and called aloud 
and again for help. At length the Becchini, in the 
booth before noticed (hardened in their profession, and 
who thus hardened, better than the most cautious, 
escaped the pestilence), lazily approached. “ Quicker, 
quicker ; for Christ’s love ! ” said Irene. “ I have much 
gold; I will reward you well; help me to bear him under 
the nearest roof. " 

“ Leave him to us, young lady ; we have had our eye 
upon him,” said one of the gravediggers. “ We ’ll do our 
duty by him, first and last. ” 

“ No, no ! touch not his head, — that is my care. 
There, I will help you ; so, — now then, hut he gentle ! ” 

Assisted by these portentous officers, Irene, who 
would not release her hold, hut seemed to watch over 
the beloved eyes and lips (set and closed as they were), 
as if to look hack the soul from parting, bore Adrian 
into a neighboring house, and laid him on a bed; 
from which Irene (preserving, as only women do in 
such times, the presence of mind and vigilant pro- 
vidence which make so sublime a contrast with their 
keen susceptibilities) caused them first to cast off the 
draperies and clothing, which might retain additional 
infection. She then despatched them for new furniture* 


100 EIENZr, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


and for whatsoever leech money might yet bribe to a 
duty now chiefly abandoned to those heroic Brotherhoods 
who, however vilified in modern judgment by the crimes 
of some unworthy members, were yet, in the dark times, 
the best, the bravest, and the holiest agents to whom God 
ever delegated the power to resist the oppressor, to feed 
the hungry, to minister to woe; and who, alone amidst 
that fiery pestilence (loosed, as it were, a demon from the 
abyss, to shiver into atoms all that binds the world to 
virtue and to law), seemed to awaken, as by the sound 
of an angel’s trumpet, to that noblest chivalry of the 
Cross, — whose faith is the scorn of self ; whose hope is 
beyond the Lazar-house ; whose feet, already winged for 
immortality, trampled, with a conqueror’s march, upon 
the graves of death! 

While this the ministry and the office of love, 
along that street in which Adrian and Irene had met 
at last, came singing, reeling, roaring, the dissolute 
and abandoned crew who had fixed their quarters in 
the convent of Santa Maria de’ Pazzi, their bravo 
chief at their head, and a nun (no longer in nun’s 
garments) upon either arm. “ A health to the Plague ! ” 
shouted the ruffian. “ A health to the Plague 1 ” echoed 
his frantic Bacchanals. 

“ A health to the Plague I may she ever, as now. 

Loose the rogue from his chain, and the nun from her vow 1 
To the gaoler a sword, to the captive a key, 

Hurrah for Earth’s Curse ! — ’t is a blessing to me. ” 

“ Holla ! ” cried the chief, stopping ; “ here, Mar- 
gherita, here ^s a brave cloak for thee, my girl ; silver 
enow on it to fill thy purse, if it ever grow empty, — which 
it may, if ever the Plague grow slack. ” 

Nay,” said the girl, who, amidst all the havoc of 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 101 


debauch, retained much of youth and beauty in her form 
and face, — “ nay, Guidotto ; perhaps it has infection. ” 

“ Pooh, child, silver never infects. Clap it on, clap 
it on. Besides, fate is fate; and when it is thine hour, 
there will be other means besides the gavocciolo.” 

So saying, he seized the mantle, threw it roughly 
over her shoulders, and dragged her on as before, half 
pleased with the finery, half frightened with the danger; 
while gradually died away, along the lurid air and 
the mournful streets, the chant of that most miserable 
mirth. 


102 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTER V. 

The Error. 

For three days, the fatal three days, did Adrian remain 
bereft of strength and sense. But he was not smitten 
by the scourge which his devoted and generous nurse 
had anticipated. It was a fierce and dangerous fever, 
brought on by the great fatigue, restlessness, and terrible 
agitation he had undergone. 

No professional mediciner could be found to attend 
him; but a good friar, better perhaps skilled in the 
healing art than many who claimed its monopoly, visited 
him daily. And in the long and frequent absences 
to which his other and numerous duties compelled the 
monk, there was one ever at hand to smooth the pillow, 
to wipe the brow, to listen to the moan, to watch the 
sleep. And even in that dismal office, when, in the 
frenzy of the sufferer, her name, coupled with terms of 
passionate endearment, broke from his lips, a thrill of 
strange pleasure crossed the heart of the betrothed, which 
she chid as if it were a crime. But even the most 
unearthly love is selfish in the rapture of being loved! 
Words cannot tell, heart cannot divine, the mingled 
emotions that broke over her when, in some of these 
incoherent ravings, she dimly understood that for her 
■ the city had been sought, the death dared, the danger 
incurred. And as then, bending passionately to kiss that 
burning brow, her tears fell fast over the idol of her 
youth, the fountains from which they gushed were those, 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 103 


fathomless and countless, which a life could not weep 
away. Not an impulse of the human and the woman 
heart that was not stirred; the adoring gratitude, the 
meek wonder thus to be loved, while deeming it so sim- 
ple a merit thus to love, — as if all sacrifice in her were 
a thing of course, to her a virtue nature could not 
paragon, worlds could not repay ! And there he lay, the 
victim to his own fearless faith, helpless, dependent 
upon her, — a thing between life and death, to thank, to 
serve, to be proud of yet protect, to compassionate yet 
revere: the saver, to be saved! Never seemed one object 
to demand at once from a single heart so many and so 
profound emotions, — the romantic enthusiasm of the girl, 
the fond idolatry of the bride, the watchful providence of 
the mother over her child. 

And, strange to say, with all the excitement of that 
lonely watch, scarcely stirring from his side, taking 
food only that her strength might not fail her, unable 
to close her eyes, — though, from the same cause, she 
would fain have taken rest when slumber fell upon 
her charge, — with all such wear and tear of frame and 
heart, she seemed wonderfully supported. And the 
holy man marvelled, in each visit, to see the cheek of 
the nurse still fresh, and her eye still bright. In her 
own superstition she thought and felt that Heaven 
gifted her with a preternatural power to he true to so 
sacred a charge; and in this fancy she did not wholly 
err, — for Heaven did gift her with that diviner power, 
when it planted in so soft a heart the enduring might 
and energy of Affection ! The friar had visited the 
sick man late on the third night, and administered to 
him a strong sedative. “This night,” said he to Irene, 
“ will be the crisis : should he awaken, as I trust he 
may, with a returning consciousness and a calm pulse, 


104 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


he will live; if not, young daughter, prepare for the 
worst. But should you note any turn in the disease 
that may excite alarm or require my attendance, this 
scroll will inform you where I am, if God spare me 
still, at each hour of the night and morning. ” 

The monk retired, and Irene resumed her watch. 

The sleep of Adrian was at first broken and inter- 
rupted, — his features, his exclamations, his gestures, 
all evinced great agony, whether mental or bodily; 
it seemed, as perhaps it was, a fierce and doubtful 
struggle between life and death for the conquest of 
the sleeper. Patient, silent, breathing but by long- 
drawn gasps, Irene sat at the bed-head. The lamp was 
rOinoved to the further end of the chamber; and its 
ray, shaded by the draperies, did not suffice to give to 
her gaze more than the outline of the countenance she 
watched. In that awful suspense all the thoughts 
that hitherto had stirred her mind lay hushed and 
mute. She was only sensible to that unutterable fear, 
which few of us have been happy enough not to know. 
That crushing weight under which we can scarcely 
breathe ' or move, the avalanche over us, freezing and 
suspended, which we cannot escape from, beneath which, 
every moment, we may be buried and overwhelmed! 
The whole destiny of life was in the chances of that 
single night! It was just as Adrian at last seemed to 
glide into a deeper and serener slumber that the bells 
of the death-cart broke with their boding knell the pal- 
pable silence of the streets; now hushed, now revived, 
as the cart stopped for its gloomy passengers, and coming 
nearer and nearer after every pause. At length she 
heard the heavy wheels stop under the very casement, 
and a voice deep and muffled calling aloud, “ Bring 
out the dead ! ” She rose, and with a noiseless step 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 105 


passed to secure ttie door, wlien the dull lamp gleamed 
upon the dark and shrouded forms of the Becchini. 

“You have not marked the door, nor set out the 
body, ” said one, gruffly ; “ but this is the third night ! 
He is ready for us.” 

“ Hush, he sleeps, — away, quick, it is not the Plague 
that seized him.” 

“Hot the Plague?” growled the Becchino, in a dis- 
appointed tone ; “ I thought no other illness dared 
encroach upon the rights of the gavocciolo ! ” 

“ Go, — here ’s money ; leave us. ” 

And the grisly carrier sullenly withdrew. The cart 
moved on; the bell renewed its summons, till slowly 
and faintly the dreadful larum died in the distance. 

Shading the lamp with her hand, Irene stole to the 
bedside, fearful that the sound and the intrusion had 
disturbed the slumberer. But his face was still locked 
as in a vice, with that iron sleep. He stirred not, — the 
breath scarcely passed his lips; she felt his pulse, as 
the wan hand lay on the coverlid, there was a slight 
beat: she was contented, removed the light, and retir- 
ing to a corner of the room, placed the little cross 
suspended round her neck upon the table, and prayed, 
in her intense suffering, to Him who had known death, 
and who — Son^of Heaven though he was, and Sovereign 
of the Seraphim — had also prayed, in his earthly travail, 
that the cup might pass away. 

The morning broke, not, as in the Horth, slowly 
and through shadow, but with the sudden glory with 
which in those climates day leaps upon earth, — like a 
giant from his sleep. A sudden smile — a burnished 
glow — and night had vanished. Adrian still slept : 
not a muscle seemed to have stirred; the sleep was 
even heavier than before; the silence became a bur- 


106 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


den upon the air. Now, in that exceeding torpor so 
like unto death, the solitary watcher became alarmed 
and terrified. Time passed, — morning glided to noon , 
— still not a sound nor motion. The sun was midway 
in heaven, — the friar came not. And now again touch- 
ing Adrian’s pulse, she felt no flutter, — she gazed on 
him appalled and confounded; surely naught living 
could he so still and pale. “ Was it indeed sleep, 
might it not he — ” She turned away, sick and frozen ; 
her tongue clove to her lips. Why did the father tarry ? 
She would go to him, — she would learn the worst ; 
she could forbear no longer. She glanced over the scroll 
the monk had left her. " From sunrise, ” it said, “ I 
shall be at the convent of the Dominicans. Death has 
stricken many of the brethren.” The convent was at 
some distance; but she knew the spot, and fear would 
wing her steps. She gave one wistful look at the sleeper, 
and rushed from the house. “ I shall see thee again 
presently,” she murmured. Alas! what hope can cal- 
culate beyond the moment? And who shall claim the 
tenure of “ The Again ” ? 

It was not many minutes after Irene had left the 
room, ere, with a long sigh, Adrian opened his eyes, — 
an altered and another man. The fever was gone ; the 
reviving pulse beat low indeed, hut calm. His mind 
was once more master of his body; and though weak 
and feeble, the danger was past, and life and intellect 
regained. 

“ I have slept long, ” he muttered ; “ and oh, such 
dreams ! And methought I saw Irene, but could not 
speak to her, and while I attempted to grasp her, her 
face changed, her form dilated, and I was in the clutch of 
the foul gravedigger. It is late, — the sun is high, — I 
must he up and stirring. Irene is in Lombardy. No, 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 107 


no ; that was a lie, a wicked lie. She is at Florence ; I 
must renew my search. 

As this duty came to his remembrance, he rose from 
the bed. He was amazed at his own debility : at first 
he could not stand without support from the wall; by 
degrees, however, he so far regained the mastery of his 
limbs as to walk, though with effort and pain. A 
ravening hunger preyed upon him; he found some 
scanty and light food in the chamber, which he de- 
voured eagerly, and with scarce less eagerness laved 
his enfeebled form and haggard face with the water that 
stood at hand. He now felt refreshed and invigorated, 
and began to indue his garments, which he found 
thrown on a heap beside the bed. He gazed with sur- 
prise and a kind of self- compassion upon his emaciated 
hands and shrunken limbs, and began now to compre- 
hend that he must have had some severe hut unconscious 
illness. “ Alone, too, ” thought he ; “ no one near to 
tend me. Nature my only nurse! but alas! alas! how 
long a time may thus have been wasted, and my 
adored Irene — Quick, quick ! not a moment more 
will I lose.” 

He soon found himself in the open street; the air 
revived him; and that morning sprung up the blessed 
breeze, the first known for weeks. He wandered on 
very slowly and feebly till he came to a broad square, 
from which, in the vista, might he seen one of the 
principal gates of Florence, and the fig-trees and olive- 
groves beyond. It was then that a pilgrim of tall 
stature approached towards him as from the gate; his 
hood was thrown back, and gave to view a countenance 
of great hut sad command ; a face in whose high 
features, massive brow, and proud, unshrinking gaze, 
shaded by an expression of melancholy more stern than 


108 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

soft, Nature seemed to have written majesty, and Fate 
disaster. As in that silent and dreary place these 
two, the only tenants of the street, now encountered, 
Adrian stopped abruptly, and said in a startled and 
doubting voice, “ Do I dream still, or do I behold 
Rienzi ? ” 

The pilgrim paused, also, as he heard the name, and 
gazing long on the attenuated features of the young lord, 
said ; “ I am he that was Rienzi ! and you, pale shadow, 
is it in this grave of Italy that I meet with the gay and 
high Colonna? Alas, young friend,” he added, in a 
more relaxed and kindly voice, “ hath the Plague not 
spared the flower of the Roman nobles? Come, I, the 
cruel and the harsh Tribune, I will be thy nurse: he 
who might have been my brother shall yet claim from 
me a brother’s care. ” 

With these words he wound his arm tenderly round 
Adrian ; and the young noble, touched by his compassion 
and agitated by the surprise, leaned upon Rienzi’s breast 
in silence, 

“ Poor youth ! ” resumed the Tribune, — for so, since 
rather fallen than deposed, he may yet be called ; “ I 
ever loved the young (my brother died young), — and 
you more than most. What fatality brought thee 
hither ? ” 

“ Irene ! ” replied Adrian, falteringly. 

“ Is it so, really ? Art thou a Colonna, and yet prize 
the fallen ? The same duty has brought me also to the 
city of Death. Prom the farthest South — over the 
mountains of the robber, through the fastnesses of my 
foes, through towns in which the herald proclaimed in 
my ear the price of my head — I have passed hither, on 
foot and alone, safe under the wings of the Almighty 
One. Young man, thou shouldst have left this task to 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 109 


one who bears a wizard’s life, and whom Heaven and 
earth yet reserve for an appointed end ! ” 

The Tribune said this in a deep and inward voice ; and 
in his raised eye and solemn brow might be seen how 
much his reverses had deepened his fanaticism, and 
added even to the sanguineness of his hopes. 

“ But, ” asked Adrian, withdrawing gently from 
Rienzi’s arm, “ thou knowest, then, where Irene is to 
be found; let us go together. Lose not a moment in 
this talk ; time is of inestimable value , and a moment in 
this city is often but the border to eternity.” 

“ Right, ” said Rienzi, awakening to his object. “ But 
fear not; I have dreamt that I shall save her, the 
gem and darling of my house. Fear not; I have no 
fear.” 

“ Know you where to seek ? ” said Adrian , impatiently ; 
“ the convent holds far other guests. ” 

“ Ha ! so said my dream ! ” 

“ Talk not now of dreams,” said the lover; “ but if you 
have no other guide, let us part at once in quest of her. 
I will take yonder street, you take the opposite, and at 
sunset let us meet in the same spot. ” 

” Rash man ! ” said the Tribune, with great solemnity, 
“ scoff not at the visions which Heaven makes a parable 
to its Chosen. Thou seekest counsel of thy human 
wisdom; I, less presumptuous, follow the hand of the 
mysterious Providence, moving even now before my gaze 
as a pillar of light through the wilderness of dread. Ay, 
meet we here at sunset, and prove whose guide is the 
most unerring. If my dream tell me true, I shall see 
my sister living, ere the sun reach yonder hill, and by a 
church dedicated to St. Mark.” 

The grave earnestness with which Rienzi spoke im- 
pressed Adrian with a hope which his reason would not 


110 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

acknowledge. He saw him depart with that proud and 
stately step to which his sweeping garments gave a yet 
more imposing dignity, and then passed up the street to 
the right hand. He had not got half-way when he felt 
himself pulled by the mantle. He turned and saw the ' 
shapeless mask of a Becchino. 

“ I feared you were sped, and that another had cheated 
me of my office, ” said the gravedigger, “ seeing that you 
returned not to the old prince’s palace. You don’t know 
me from the rest of us, I see, hut I am the one you told 
to seek — ” 

“ Irene ! ” 

“Yes, Irene di Gahrini; you promised ample reward.” 

“ You shall have it.” 

“ Follow me. ” 

The Becchino strode on, and soon arrived at a man- 
sion. He knocked twice at the potter’s entrance; an 
old woman cautiously opened the door. “ Fear not, 
good aunt, ” said the gravedigger ; “ this is the young 
lord I spoke to thee of. Thou sayest thou hast two 
ladies in the palace, who alone survived of all the 
lodgers; and their names were Bianca de Medici, and 
— what was the other?” 

“ Irene di Gabrini, a Eoman lady. But I told thee 
this was the fourth day they left the house, terrified by 
the deaths within it. ” 

“ Thou didst so ; and was there anything remarkable 
in the dress of the Signora di Gabrini ? ” 

“ Yes, I have told thee ; a blue mantle, such as I have 
rarely seen, wrought with silver. ” 

“Was the broidery that of stars, silver stars,” ex- 
claimed Adrian, “ with a sun in the centre ? ” 

“ It was.” 

“ Alas ! alas ! the arms of the Tribune’s family ! I 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. Ill 


remember how I praised the mantle the first day she 
wore it, — the day on which we were betrothed!” 

And the lover at once conjectured the secret senti- 
ment which had induced Irene to retain thus carefully a 
robe so endeared by association. 

“ You know no more of your lodgers? ” 

“ Nothing. ” 

“ And is this all you have learned, knave ? ” cried 
Adrian. 

“ Patience. I must bring you from proof to proof, 
and link to link, in order to win my reward. Follow, 
signor. ” 

The Becchino, then passing through the several lanes 
and streets, arrived at another house of less magnificent 
size and architecture. Again he tapped thrice at the 
parlor door; and this time came forth a man, withered, 
old, and palsied, whom death seemed to disdain to 
strike. 

“ Signor Astuccio, ” said the Becchino, “ pardon me ; 
but I told thee I might trouble thee again. This is the 
gentleman who wants to know what is often hest un- 
known, — but that ’s not my affair. Did a lady — young 
and beautiful, with dark hair, and of a slender form — 
enter this house, stricken with the first symptom of the 
Plague, three days since ? ” 

“ Ay, thou knowest that well enough ; and thou 
knowest still better, that she has departed these two 
days. It was quick work with her, quicker than with 
most! ” 

“ Did she wear anything remarkable ? ” 

** Yes, troublesome man ; a blue cloak with stars of 
silver. ” 

“ Couldst thou guess aught of her previous circum- 
stances ? ” 


112 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ No, save that she raved much about the nunnery of 
Santa Maria de’ Pazzi, and bravos, and sacrilege. ” 

“ Are you satisfied, signor ? ” asked the gravedigger, 
with an air of triumph, turning to Adrian. “ But no, 
I will satisfy thee better, if thou hast courage. Wilt 
thou follow ? ” 

“ I comprehend thee ; lead on. Courage ! what is 
there on earth now to fear ? ” 

Muttering to himself, “ Ay, leave me alone ; I have a 
head worth something ; I ask no gentleman to go by my 
word; I will make his own eyes the judge of what my 
trouble is worth,” the gravedigger now led the way 
through one of the gates a little out of the city. And 
here, under a shed, sat six of his ghastly and ill-omened 
brethren, with spades and pickaxes at their feet. 

His guide now turned round to Adrian, whose face 
was set, and resolute in despair. 

“ Fair signor, ” said he, with some touch of lingering 
compassion, “ wouldst thou really convince thine own 
eyes and heart? The sight may appall, the contagion 
may destroy thee, — if, indeed, as it seems to me. Death 
has not already written ‘ mine ’ upon thee. ” 

“ Raven of bode and woe ! ” answered Adrian, “ seest 
thou not that all I shrink from is thy voice and aspect ? 
Show me her I seek, living or dead. ” 

“ I will show her to you, then, ” said the Becchino, 
sullenly , “ such as two nights since she was committed to 
my charge. Line and lineament may already be swept 
away, for the Plague hath a rapid besom; but I have 
left that upon her by which you will know the Becchino 
is no liar. Bring hither the torches, comrades, and lift 
the door. Never stare; it’s the gentleman’s whim, and 
he ’ll pay it well. ” 

Turning to the right, while Adrian mechanically fol- 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 113 


lowed his conductors, a spectacle whose dire philosophy 
crushes as with a wheel all the pride of mortal man — 
the spectacle of that vault in which earth hides all that 
on earth flourished, rejoiced, exulted — awaited his 
eye! 

The Becchini lifted a ponderous grate, lowered their 
torches (scarcely needed, for through the aperture rushed 
with a hideous glare the light of the burning sun), and 
motioned to Adrian to advance. He stood upon the sum- 
mit of the abyss and gazed below. 

It was a large, deep, and circular space, like the bottom 
of an exhausted well. In niches cut into the walls of 
earth around, lay, duly coffined, those who had been the 
earliest victims of the Plague, when the Becchino’s 
market was not yet glutted, and priest followed, and 
friend mourned the dead. But on the floor below, there 
was the loathsome horror ! Huddled and matted together 

— some naked, some in shrouds already black and rotten 

— lay the later guests, the unshriven and unblest 1 The 
torches, the sun, streamed broad and red over corruption 
in all its stages, from the pale blue tint and swollen 
shape, to the moistened undistinguishable mass, or the 
riddled bones, where yet clung, in strips and tatters, the 
black and mangled flesh. In many, the face remained 
almost perfect, while the rest of the body was but bone ; 
the long hair, the human face, surmounting the grisly 
skeleton. There was the infant still on the mother’s 
breast; there was the lover stretched across the dainty 
limbs of his adored! The rats (for they clustered in 
numbers to that feast), disturbed, not scared, sat up from 
their horrid meal as the light glimmered over them, and 
thousands of them lay round, stark and dead, poisoned 
by that they fed on ! There, too, the wild satire of the 

VOL. II. — 8 


114 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


gravediggers had cast, though stripped of their gold and 
jewels, the emblems that spoke of departed rank, — the 
broken wand of the councillor, the general’s baton, the 
priestly mitre! The foul and livid exhalations gathered 
like flesh itself, fungous and putrid, upon the walls and 
the ^ — 

But who shall detail the ineffable and unimaginable 
horrors that reigned over the palace where the G-reat 
King received the prisoners whom the sword of the 
Pestilence had subdued? 

But through all that crowded court — crowded with 
beauty and with birth, with the strength of the young, 
and the honors of the old, and the valor of the brave, 
and the wisdom of the learned, and the wit of the 
scorner, and the piety of the faithful — one only figure 
attracted Adrian’s eye. Apart from the rest, a late 
comer, — the long locks streaming far and dark over arm 
and breast, — lay a female, the face turned partially 
aside, the little seen not recognizable even by the mother 
of the dead, but wrapped round in that fatal mantle, on 
which, though blackened and tarnished, was yet visible 
the starry heraldry assumed by those who claimed the 
name of the proud Tribune of Borne. Adrian saw no 
more, — he fell back in the arms of the gravediggers; 
when he recovered, he was still without the gates of 
Florence, reclined upon a green mound. His guide 
stood beside him, holding his steed by the bridle as it 
grazed patiently on the neglected grass. The other 
brethren of the axe had resumed their seat under the 
shed. 

“ So, you have revived ! Ah, I thought it was only 

1 The description in the text is borrowed from the famous wax- 
work model (of the interior of the Charnel-house) at Florence. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 115 


the effluvia; few stand it as we do. And so, as your 
search is over, deeming you would now be quitting 
Florence if you have any sense left to you, I went for 
your good horse. I have fed him since your departure 
from the palace. Indeed I fancied he would he my per- 
quisite ; but there are plenty as good. Come, young sir, 
mount. I feel a pity for you, I know not why, except 
that you are the only one I have met for weeks who 
seems to care for another more than for yourself. I 
hope you are satisfied now that I showed some brains, 
eh? in your service; and as I have kept my promise, 
youfil keep yours.” 

“ Friend, ” said Adrian, “ here is gold enough to make 
thee rich; here, too, is a jewel that merchants will tell 
thee princes might vie to purchase. Thou seemest 
honest, despite thy calling, or thou mightest have robbed 
and murdered me long since. Do me one favor more.” 

“ By my poor mother’s soul, yes.” 

“ Take yon — yon clay from that fearful place. Inter 
it in some quiet and remote spot, — apart, alone! You 
promise me ? — you swear it ? It is well ! And now 
help me on my horse. Farewell, Italy, and if I die not 
with this stroke, may I die as befits at once honor and 
despair, — with trumpet and banner round me, in a well- 
fought field against a worthy foe! Save a knightly 
death, nothing is left to live for! ” 




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BOOK VII. 


CHAPTER I. 

Avignon. — The two Pages. — The Stranger Beauty. 

There is this difference between the drama of Shake- 
speare and that of almost every other master of the 
same art, — that in the first the catastroplie is rarely pro- 
duced by one single cause, one simple and continuous 
chain of events. Various and complicated agencies work 
out the final end. Unfettered by the rules of time and 
place, each time, each place depicted, presents us with 
its appropriate change of action or of actors. Some- 
times the interest seems to halt, to turn aside, to bring 
us unawares upon objects hitherto unnoticed, or upon 
qualities of the characters hitherto hinted at, not devel- 
oped. But, in reality, the pause in the action is but to 
collect, to gather up, and to grasp all the varieties of 
circumstance that conduce to the Great Result; and the 
art of fiction is only deserted for the fidelity of history. 
Whoever seeks to place before the world the true repre- 
sentation of a man’s life and times, and, enlarging the 
Dramatic into the Epic, extends his narrative over the 
vicissitudes of years, will find himself, unconsciously, in 
this the imitator of Shakespeare. New characters, each 
conducive to the end, new scenes, each leading to the 
last, rise before him as he proceeds, sometimes seeming 
to the reader to delay, even while they advance, the 


120 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


dread catastrophe. The sacrificial procession sweeps 
along, swelled by new-comers, losing many that first 
joined it ; before, at last, the same as a whole, but difi’er- 
ing in its components, the crowd reach the fated bourn 
of the Altar and the Victim! 

It is five years after the date of the events I have 
recorded, and my story conveys us to the papal court 
at Avignon, — that tranquil seat of power to which the 
successors of St. Peter had transplanted the luxury, the 
pomp, and the vices of the imperial city. Secure from 
the fraud or violence of a powerful and barbarous nobil- 
ity, the courtiers of the See surrendered themselves to 
a holiday of delight; their repose was devoted to enjoy- 
ment, and Avignon presented at that day perhaps the 
gayest and most voluptuous society of Europe. The 
elegance of Clement VI. had diffused an air of literary 
refinement over the grosser pleasures of the place, and 
the spirit of Petrarch still continued to work its way 
through the councils of faction and the orgies of debauch. 

Innocent VI. had lately succeeded Clement, and what- 
ever his own claims to learning,^ he at least appreciated 
knowledge and intellect in others; so that the graceful 
pedantry of the time continued to mix itself with the 
pursuit of pleasure. The corruption which reigned 
through the whole place was too confirmed to yield to 
the example of Innocent, himself a man of simple habits 
and exemplary life. Though, like his predecessor, obedi- 
ent to the policy of Prance, Innocent possessed a hard 
and an extended ambition. Deeply concerned for the 
interests of the Church, he formed the project of con- 

1 Matteo Villani (lib. iii. cap, 44) says that Innocent VI. had not 
much pretension to learning He is reported, however, by other 
authorities, cited by Zefiriuo Re, to have been “ eccellente cano- 
nista.” He had been a professor in the University of Toulouse. 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 121 


firming and re-establishing her shaken dominion in Italy ; 
and he regarded the tyrants of the various states as the 
principal obstacles to his ecclesiastical ambition. Nor 
was this the policy of Innocent VI. alone. With such 
exceptions as peculiar circumstances necessarily occa- 
sioned, the Papal See was, upon the whole, friendly to 
the political liberties of Italy. The Republics of the 
Middle Ages grew up under the shadow of the Church ; 
and there, as elsewhere, it was found, contrary to a vul- 
gar opinion, that Religion, however prostituted and per- 
verted, served for the general protection of civil freedom, 
— raised the lowly, and resisted the oppressor. 

At this period there appeared at Avignon a lady of 
singular and matchless beauty. She had come with a 
slender but well-appointed retinue from Florence, but 
declared herself of Neapolitan birth; the widow of a 
noble of the brilliant court of the imfortunate Jane. 
Her name was Cesarini. Arrived at a place where, even 
in the citadel of Christianity, Venus retained her ancient 
empire, where Love made the prime business of life, and 
to be beautiful was to be of power, the Signora Cesarini 
had scarcely appeared in public before she saw at her 
feet half the rank and gallantry of Avignon. Her 
female attendants were beset with bribes and billets; and 
nightly, beneath her lattice, was heard the plaintive 
serenade. She entered largely into the gay dissipation 
of the town, and her charms shared the celebrity of the 
hour with the verse of Petrarch. But though she 
frowned on none, none could claim the monopoly of her 
smiles. Her fair fame was as yet unblemished; but if 
any might presume beyond the rest, she seemed to have 
selected rather from ambition than love ; and Giles, the 
warlike Cardinal d’Albornoz, all powerful at the sacred 
court, already foreboded the hour of his triumph. 


122 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


It was late noon, and in the antechamber of the fair 
signora waited two of that fraternity of pages, fair and 
richly clad, who at that day furnished the favorite attend- 
ants to rank of either sex. 

“ By my troth,” cried one of these young servitors, 
pushing from him the dice with which himself and his 
companion had sought to beguile their leisure, “ this is 
but dull work! and the best part of the day is gone. 
Our lady is late.” 

“ And I have donned my new velvet mantle, ” replied 
the other, compassionately eying his finery. 

“ Chut, Giacomo, ” said his comrade, yawning j “ a 
truce with thy conceit I What news abroad, I wonder ? 
Has his Holiness come to his senses yet ? ” 

“ His senses I what, is he mad then ? ” quoth Giacomo, 
in a serious and astonished whisper. 

“ I think he is, if, being pope, he does not discover 
that he may at length lay aside mask and hood. ‘ Con- 
tinent cardinal, — lewd pope, ’ is the old motto, you 
know ; something must be the matter with the good man’s 
brain if he continue to live like a hermit. ” 

“ Oh, I have you ! but, faith, his Holiness has proxies 
eno’. The bishops take care to prevent women. Heaven 
bless them I going out of fashion ; and Albornoz does not 
maintain your proverb touching the cardinals.” 

“ True, but Giles is a warrior, — a cardinal in the 
Church, but a soldier in the city.” 

“ Will he carry the fort here, think you, Angelo ? ” 

“ Why, fort is female; but — ” 

“But what?” 

“ The signora’s brow is made for power rather than 
love, fair as it is. She sees in Albornoz the prince, 
and not the lover. With what a step she sweeps the 
floor! it disdains even the cloth of gold! ” 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 123 

“ Hark ! ” cried Giacomo, hastening to the lattice, 
“ hear you the hoofs below ? Ah, a gallant company ! ” 

“ Returned from hawking, ” answered Angelo, regard- 
ing wistfully the cavalcade, as it swept the narrow 
street. “Plumes waving, steeds curveting, — see how 
yon handsome cavalier presses close to that dame ! ” 

“ His mantle is the color of mine, ” sighed Giacomo. 

As the gay procession paced slowly on, till hidden 
by the winding streets, and as the sound of laughter 
and the tramp of horses was yet faintly heard, there 
frowned right before the straining gaze of the pages a 
dark, massive tower of the mighty masonry of the 
eleventh century: the sun gleamed sadly on its vast 
and dismal surface, which was only here and there 
relieved by loopholes and narrow slits, rather than 
casements. It was a striking contrast to the gayety 
around, the glittering shops, and the gaudy train that 
had just filled the space below. This contrast the 
young men seemed involuntarily to feel; they drew back 
and looked at each other. 

“I know your thoughts, Giacomo,” said Angelo, the 
handsomer and elder of the two. “ You think yon tower 
affords hut a gloomy lodgment ” 

“ And I thank my stars that made me not high enough 
to require so grand a cage, ” rejoined Giacomo. 

“ Y et, observed Angelo, “ it holds one who in birth 
was not our superior.” 

“ Do tell me something of that strange man, ” said 
Giacomo, regaining his seat ; “ you are Roman and should 
know. ” 

“ Yes ! ” answered Angelo, haughtily drawing himself 
up ; “ I am Roman ! and I should he unworthy my birth 
if I had not already learned what honor is due to the name 
of Cola di Rienzi.” 


124 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

“ Yet your fellow-Romans nearly stoned him, I fancy, ’* 
muttered Giacomo, “ Honor seems to lie more in kicks 
than money. Can you tell me, ” continued the page in a 
louder key, — “ can you tell me if it be true that Rienzi 
appeared at Prague before the emperor, and prophesied 
that the late pope and all the cardinals should he mur- 
dered, and a new Italian pope elected, who should endue 
the emperor with a golden crown, as Sovereign of 
Sicilia, Calabria, and Apulia,^ and himself with a crown 
of silver, as King of Rome and all Italy ? And — ” 

“ Hush ! ” interrupted Angelo, impatiently. Listen 
to me, and you shall know the exact story. On last 
leaving Rome (thou knowest that, after his fall, he was 
present at the Jubilee in disguise), the Tribune — ” 
here Angelo, pausing, looked round, and then with 
a flushed cheek and raised voice resumed: “Yes, the 
Tribune^ that was and shall be, travelled in disguise, 
as a pilgrim, over mountain and forest, night and day, 
exposed to rain and storm, no shelter but the cave, — he 
who had been, they say, the very spoilt one of Luxury. 
Arrived at length in Bohemia, he disclosed himself to 
a Florentine in Prague, and through his aid obtained 
audience of the Emperor Charles.” 

“ A prudent man, the emperor, ” said Giacomo, 
“ close-fisted as a miser ! He makes conquests by bar- 
gain, and goes to market for laurels, — as I have heard 
my brother say, who was under him.” 

“ True ; but I have also heard that he likes bookmen 
and scholars, is wise and temperate, and much is yet 
hoped from him in Italy ! Before the emperor, I say, 
came Rienzi. ‘ Know, great prince,’ said he, ‘ that I 
am that Rienzi to whom God gave to govern Rome in 
peace, with justice, and to freedom. I curbed the 

^ An absurd fable, adopted by certain historians. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 125 


nobles, I purged corruption, I amended law. The 
powerful persecuted me, — pride and envy have chased 
me from my dominions. Great as you are, fallen as I 
am, I too have wielded the sceptre, and might have 
worn a crown. Know, too, that I am illegitimately of 
your lineage; my father the son of Henry VII./ the 
blood of the Teuton rolls in my veins; mean as were 
my earlier fortunes and humble my earlier name, from 
you, 0 king, I seek protection, and I demand justice.’ ” ^ 
“ A bold speech, and one from equal to equal, ” said 
Giacomo ; “ surely you swell us out the words. ” 

‘‘Not a whit; they were written down by the 
emperor’s scribe, and every Homan who has once 
heard knows them by heart.' once every Roman was 
the equal to a king, and Rienzi maintained our dignity 
in asserting his own.” 

Giacomo, who discreetly avoided quarrels, knew the 
weak side of his friend; and though in his heart he 
thought the Romans as good-for-nothing a set of tur- 
bulent dastards as all Italy might furnish, he merely 
picked a straw from his mantle, and said, in rather an 
impatient tone, “ Humph, — proceed ! did the emperor 
dismiss him ? ” 

“ Not so ; Charles was struck with his bearing and his 
spirit, received him graciously, and entertained him hospi- 
tably. He remained some time at Prague, and astonished 
all the learned with his knowledge and eloquence. 

1 Uncle to the Emperor Charles. 

2 See, for this speech, the anonymous biographer, lib. ii. cap. 12. 

3 His Italian contemporary delights in representing this remark- 
able man as another Crichton. “ Disputava,” he says of him when 
at Prague, “ disputava con mastri di teologia ! molto diceva. par- 
lava cose meravigliose . . . abbair fea ogni persona.” — “ He dis- 
puted with masters of theology; he spoke much, he discoursed 
things wonderful ... he astonished every one.” 


126 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ But if so honored at Prague, how comes he a pris- 
oner at Avignon ? ” 

“ Giacomo, ” said Angelo, thoughtfully, “ there are 
some men whom we, of another mind and mould, can 
rarely comprehend and never fathom. And of such 
men I have observed that a supreme confidence in their 
own fortunes or their own souls is the most common 
feature. Thus impressed and thus buoyed, they rush 
into danger with a seeming madness, and from danger 
soar to greatness or sink to death. So with Bienzi; 
dissatisfied with empty courtesies and weary of playing 
the pedant, since once he had played the prince, 
some say of his own accord (though others relate that 
he was surrendered to the pope's legate by Charles), he 
left the emperor’s court, and without arms, without 
money, betook himself at once to Avignon! " 

“ Madness indeed ! ” 

“ Yet, perhaps, his only course, under all circum- 
stances, ” resumed the elder page. “ Once before his 
fall and once during his absence from Rome, he had 
been excommunicated by the pope’s legate. He was 
accused of heresy, — the ban was still on him. It was 
necessary that he should clear himself. How was the 
poor exile to do so? Ro powerful friend stood up for 
the friend of the people. No courtier vindicated one 
who had trampled on the neck of the nobles. His own 
genius was his only friend ; on that only could he rely. 
He sought Avignon, to free himself from the accusa- 
tions against him; and, doubtless, he hoped that there 
was but one step from hie acquittal to his restoration. 
Besides, it is certain that the emperor had been applied 
to, formally, to surrender Rienzi. He had the choice 
before him — for to that sooner or later it must come — 
to go free or to go in bonds as a criminal or as a 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 127 


E-oman. He chose the latter. Wherever he passed 
along, the people rose in every town, in every hamlet. 
The name of the great Tribune was honored through- 
out all Italy. They besought him not to rush into the 
very den of peril; they implored him to save himself 
for that country which he had sought to raise. ‘ I go 
to vindicate myself and to triumph,' was the Tribune’s 
answer. Solemn honors were paid him in the cities 
through which he passed ! ^ and I am told that never 
ambassador, prince, or baron entered Avignon with so 
long a train as that which followed into these very 
walls the steps of Cola di Eienzi. ” 

“ And on his arrival ? ” 

“ He demanded an audience, that he might refute 
the charges against him. He flung down the gage to 
the proud cardinals who had excommunicated him. He 
besought a trial. ” 

“ And what said the pope ? ” 

“ Nothing, by word. Yon tower was his answer! ” 

“ A rough one ! ” 

“ But there have been longer roads than that from 
the prison to the palace, and God made not men like 
Eienzi for the dungeon and the chain.” 

As Angelo said this with a loud voice, and with all 
the enthusiasm with which the fame of the fallen Tri- 
bune had inspired the youth of Eome, he heard a sigh 
behind him. He turned in some confusion, and at the 
door which admitted to the chamber occupied by the 
Signora Cesarini, stood a female of noble presence. 
Attired in the richest garments, gold and gems were dull 
to the lustre of her dark eyes ; and as she now stood, 
erect and commanding, never seemed brow more made 

^ “ Per tutta la via li furo fatti solenni onori,” etc. — Vita di 
Cola di Rienzi, lib. ii. cap. 13. 


128 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNE^. 

for the regal crown, never did human beauty more 
fully consummate the ideal of a heroine and a queen. 

“ Pardon me, signora, ” said Angelo, hesitatingly, “ I 
spoke loud, I disturbed you ; but I am E-oman, and my 
theme was — ” 

'' Kienzi ! ” said the lady, approaching ; “ a fit one to 
stir a Eomaii heart. Nay, no excuses; they would 
sound ill on thy generous lips. Ah, if — ” the signora 
paused suddenly, and sighed again; then in an altered 
and graver tone she resumed — “ if fate restore Eienzi 
to his proper fortunes, he shall know what thou deemest 
of him.” 

“ If you, lady, who are of Naples, ” said Angelo, with 
meaning emphasis, “ speak thus of a fallen exile, what 
must I have felt who acknowledged a sovereign ? ” 

“ Eienzi is not of Nome alone ; he is of Italy, of the 
world, ” returned the signora. “ And you, Angelo, who 
have had the boldness to speak thus of one fallen, have 
proved with what loyalty you can serve those who have 
the fortune to own you.” 

As she spoke, the signora looked at the page’s down- 
cast and blushing face long and wistfully, with the gaze 
of one accustomed to read the soul in the countenance. 

“ Men are often deceived, ” said she, sadly, yet with 
a half-smile; “ but women rarely, — save in love. Would 
that Nome were filled with such as you! Enough! 
Hark ! Is that the sound of hoofs in the court below 1 ” 

“ Madame, ” said Giacomo, bringing his mantle gal- 
lantly over his shoulder, “ I see the servitors of Mon- 
signore the Cardinal d’Albornoz. It is the cardinal 
himself. ” 

“ It is well, ” said the signora, with a brightening eye ; 
" I await him ! ” With these words she withdrew by the 
door through which she had surprised the Eoman page. 


RIENZI, THE EAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 129 


CHAPTER II. 


The Character of a Warrior Priest. — An Interview. — The 
Intrigue and Counter-Intrigue of Courts. 

Giles (or Egidio^), Cardinal d^Albornoz, was one of 
the most remarkable men of that remarkable time, so 
prodigal of genius. Boasting his descent from the royal 
houses of Aragon and Leon, he had early entered the 
Church, and, yet almost a youth, attained the arch- 
bishopric of Toledo. But no peaceful career, however 
brilliant, sufficed to his ambition. He could not con- 
tent himself with the honors of the Church, unless they 
were the honors of a church militant. In the war 
against the Moors no Spaniard had more highly dis- 
tinguished himself; and Alphonso XI., King of Castile, 
had insisted on receiving from the hand of the martial 
priest the badge of knighthood. After the death of 
Alphonso, who was strongly attached to him, Albornoz 
repaired to Avignon, and obtained from Clement VI. the 
cardinaPs hat. With Innocent he continued in high 
favor, and now, constantly in the councils of the pope, 
rumors of warlike preparation, under the banners of 
Albornoz, for the recovery of the papal dominions from 
the various tyrants that usurped them, were already 
circulated through the court. ^ Bold, sagacious, enter- 

^ Egidio is the proper Italian equivalent to the French name 
Gilles ; but the cardinal is generally called, by the writers of that 
day, Gilio d’Albornoz. 

2 It is a characteristic anecdote of this bold churchman, that 
Urban V. one day demanded an account of the sums spent in his 
military expedition against the Italian tyrants. The cardinal pre- 
VOL. II. — 9 


130 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

prising, and cold-hearted, with the valor of the knight, 
and the cunning of the priest, — such was the character 
of Giles, Cardinal d’Albornoz. 

Leaving his attendant gentlemen in the antechamber, 
Albornoz was ushered into the apartment of the Signora 
Cesarini. In person, the cardinal was about the middle 
height; the dark complexion of Spain had faded by 
thought, and the wear of ambitious schemes, into a 
sallow hut hardy hue; his brow was deeply furrowed, 
and though not yet passed the prime of life, Albornoz 
might seem to have entered age, hut for the firmness of 
his step, the slender elasticity of his frame, and an eyo 
which had acquired calmness and depth from thought, 
without losing any of the brilliancy of youth. 

“Beautiful signora,” said the cardinal, bending over 
the hand of the Cesarini with a grace which betokened 
more of the prince than of the priest, the commands 
of his Holiness have detained me, I fear, beyond the 
hour in which you vouchsafed to appoint my homage, 
hut my heart has been with you since we parted. ” 

“ The Cardinal d’Albornoz, ” replied the signora, 
gently withdrawing her hand, and seating herself, 
“ has so many demands on his time, from the duties 
of his rank and renown, that methinks to divert his 
attention for a few moments to less noble thoughts is 
a kind of treason to his fame. ” 

“Ah, lady,” replied the cardinal, “never was my 
ambition so nobly directed as it is now; and it were 
a prouder lot to be at thy feet than on the throne of 
St Peter.” 

seated to the pope a wagon filled with the keys of the cities and 
fortresses he had taken. “This is my account,” said he; “you 
perceive how I have invested your money.” The pope embraced 
him, and gave him no further trouble about his accounts. 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 131 


A momentary blush passed over the cheek of the 
signora, yet it seemed the blush of indignation as much 
as of vanity ; it was succeeded by an extreme paleness. 
She paused before she replied ; and then fixing her large 
and haughty eyes on the enamored Spaniard, she said, 
in a low voice, — 

“ My lord cardinal, I do not affect to misunderstand 
your words ; neither do I place them to the account of 
a general gallantry. I am vain enough to believe you 
imagine you speak truly when you say you love me. ” 

“ Imagine ! ” echoed the Spaniard. 

“Listen to me,” continued the signora. “ She whom 
the Cardinal Albornoz honors with his love has a right 
to demand of him its proofs. In the papal courts whose 
power like his ? — I require you to exercise it for 
me.” 

“ Speak, dearest lady ; have your estates been seized 
by the barbarians of these lawless times? Hath any 
dared to injure you? Lands and titles, are these thy 
wish ? — my power is thy slave.” 

“ Cardinal, no ! there is one thing dearer to an Italian 
and a woman than wealth or station, — it is revenge ! ” 

The cardinal drew back from the flashing eye that was 
bent upon him, but the spirit of her speech touched a 
congenial chord. 

“ There, ” said he, after a little hesitation, — “ there 
spake high descent. Kevenge is the luxury of the well- 
born. Let serfs and churls forgive an injury. Proceed, 
lady.” 

“ Hast thou heard the last news from Kome ? ” asked 
the signora. 

“ Surely,” replied the cardinal, in some surprise, we 
were poor statesmen to be ignorant of the condition of 
the capital of the papal dominions ; and my heart mourns 


132 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


for that unfortunate city. But wherefore wouldst thou 
question me of Rome ? Thou art — ” 

“ Roman ! Know, my lord, that I have a purpose in 
calling myself of Naples. To your discretion I intrust 
my secret, — I am of Rome ! Tell me of her state. 

Fairest one , ” returned the cardinal , “ I should have 
known that that brow and presence were not of the light 
Campania. My reason should have told me that they 
bore the stamp of the empress of the world. The state 
of Rome,” continued Albornoz, in a graver tone, is 
briefly told. Thou knowest that after the fall of the 
able but insolent Rienzi, Pepin, Count of Miuorbino (a 
creature of Montreal’s), who had assisted in expelling 
him, would have betrayed Rome to Montreal, — but he 
was neither strong enough nor wise enough, and the 
barons chased him as he had chased the Tribune. Some 
time afterwards a new demagogue, John Cerroni, was 
installed in the Capitol. He once more expelled the 
nobles; new revolutions ensued, — the barons were 
recalled. The weak successor of Rienzi summoned the 
people to arms, — in vain : in terror and despair he 
abdicated his power, and left the city a prey to the 
interminable feuds of the Orsini, the Colonna, and the 
Savelli.” 

" Thus much I know, my lord ; but when his Holiness 
succeeded to the chair of Clement VI. — ” 

“Then,” said Albornoz, and a slight frown darkened 
his sallow brow, “ then came the blacker part of the his- 
tory. Two senators were elected in concert by the pope. ” 
“ Their names ? ” 

“ Bertoldo Orsini and one of the Colonna. A few 
weeks afterwards the high price of provisions stung the 
rascal stomachs of the mob, — they rose, they clamored, 
they armed, they besieged the Capitol — ” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 133 


“ Well, well! ” cried the signora, clasping her hands, 
and betokening in every feature her interest in the 
narration. 

Colonna only escaped death by a vile disguise; 
Bertoldo Orsini was stoned.” 

“ Stoned ! — there fell one ! ” 

“Yes, lady, one of a great house, the least drop of 
whose blood were worth an ocean of plebeian puddle. 
At present all is disorder, misrule, anarchy, at Rome. 
The contests of the nobles shake the city to the centre ; 
and prince and people, wearied of so many experiments 
to establish a government, have now no governor hut 
the fear of the sword. Such, fair madam, is the state 
of Rome. Sigh not; it occupies now our care. It shall 
he remedied; and I, madam, may he the happy instru- 
ment of restoring peace to your native city.” 

“ There is hut one way of restoring peace to Rome,” 
answered the signora, abruptly, “ and that is — the 
restoration of Rienzi ! ” 

The cardinal started. “ Madam,” said he, “ do I hear 
aright ? Are you not nobly horn ? Can you desire the 
rise of a plebeian ? Did you not speak of revenge, and 
now you ask for mercy ? ” 

“ Lord Cardinal,” said the beautiful signora, earnestly, 
“ I do not ask for mercy : such a word is not for the lips 
of one who demands justice. Nobly horn I am, — ay, 
and from a stock to whose long descent from the patri- 
cians of ancient Rome the high line of Aragon itself 
would be of yesterday. Nay, I would not offend you, 
monsignore; your greatness is not borrowed from pedi- 
grees and tombstones, — your greatness is your own 
achieving; would you speak honestly, my lord, you 
would own that you are proud only of your own laurels, 
and that, in your heart, you laugh at the stately fools 


134 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


who trick themselves out in the mouldering finery of 
the dead ! ” 

“ Muse ! prophetess ! you speak aright,” said the high- 
spirited cardinal , with unwonted energy ; “ and your 
voice is like that of the Fame I dreamed of in my youth. 
Speak on, speak ever ! ” 

“ Such,” continued the signora, “ such as your pride, 
is the just pride of Kienzi, — proud that he is the 
workman of his own great renown. In such as the 
Tribune of Rome we acknowledge the founders of noble 
lineage. Ancestry makes not them, — they make ances- 
try. Enough of this. I am of noble race, it is true; 
but my house, and those of many, have been crushed 
and broken beneath the yoke of the Orsini and Colonna, 
— it is against them I desire revenge. But I am better 
than an Italian lady : I am a Roman woman, — I weep 
tears of blood for the disorder of my unhappy country. 
I mourn that even you, my lord, — yes, that a barbarian , 
however eminent and however great, should mourn for 
Rome. I desire to restore her fortunes.” 

“ But Rienzi would only restore his own. ” 

“Not so, my lord cardinal, not so. Ambitious and 
proud he may be, — great souls are so, — but he has 
never had one wish divorced from the welfare of Rome. 
But put aside all thought of his interests, — it is not of 
these I speak. You desire to re-establish the papal 
power ill Rome. Your senators have failed to do it. 
Demagogues fail; Rienzi alone can succeed, — he alone 
can command the turbulent passions of the barons, he 
alone can sway the capricious and fickle mob. Release, 
restore Rienzi, and through Rienzi the pope regains 
Rome ! ” 

The cardinal did not answer for some moments. 
Buried as in a reverie, he sat motionless, shading his 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 135 


face with his hand. Perhaps he secretly owned there 
was a wiser policy in the suggestions of the signora than 
he cared openly to confess. Lifting his head, at length, 
from his bosom, he fixed his eyes upon the signora’s 
watchful countenance, and with a forced smile said, — 
“Pardon me, madam; but while we play the politi- 
cians, forget not that I am thy adorer. Sagacious may 
he thy counsels, yet wherefore are they urged? Why 
this anxious interest for Pienzi ? If by releasing him 
the Church may gain an ally, am I sure that Giles 
d’Albornoz will not raise a rival ? ” 

“My lord,” said the signora, half rising, “you are 
my suitor; hut your rank does not tempt me, your 
gold cannot buy. If you love me, I have a right to 
command your services to whatsoever task I would 
require, — it is the law of chivalry. If ever I yield to 
the addresses of mortal lover, it will be to the man who 
restores to my native land her hero and her savior. ” 

“ Fair patriot,” said the cardinal, “ your words encour- 
age my hope, yet they half damp my ambition ; for fain 
would I desire that love and not service should alone give 
me the treasure that I ask. But hear me, sweet lady; 
you overrate my power : I cannot deliver Bienzi, — he 
is accused of rebellion, he is excommunicated for heresy. 
His acquittal rests with himself.” 

“ You can procure his trial ? ” 

“Perhaps, lady.” 

“ That is his acquittal. And a private audience of 
his Holiness ? ” 

“ Doubtless.” 

“ That is his restoration! Behold all I ask! ” 

“ And then, sweet Roman, it will be mine to ask,” 
said the cardinal, passionately, dropping on his knee 
and taking the signora’s hand. For one moment that 


136 EIENZI, THE LAST OE THE TRIBUNES. 

proud lady felt that she was woman, — she blushed, she 
trembled ; but it was not (could the cardinal have read 
that heart) with passion or with weakness ; it was with 
terror and with shame. Passively she surrendered her 
hand to the cardinal, who covered it with kisses. 

“Thus inspired,” said Albornoz, rising, “I will not 
doubt of success. To-morrow I wait on thee again. ” 

He pressed her hand to his heart, — the lady felt it 
not. He sighed his farewell, — she did not hear it. 
Lingeringly he gazed, and slowly he departed; but 
it was some moments before, recalled to herself, the 
signora felt that she was alone. 

“ Alone! ” she cried, half aloud, and with wild 
emphasis, — “alone! Oh, what have I undergone, 
what have 1 said! Unfaithful, even in thought, to 
him! Oh, never, never! I, that have felt the kiss 
of his hallowing lips, that have slept on his kingly 
heart! — I! — Holy Mother, befriend and strengthen 
me! ” she continued, as, weeping bitterly, she sunk 
upon her knees; and for some moments she was lost 
in prayer. Then, rising composed but deadly pale, 
and with the tears rolling heavily down her cheeks, 
the signora passed slowly to the casement; she threw 
it open, and bent forward. The air of the declining day 
came softly on her temples; it cooled, it mitigated, the 
fever that preyed within. Dark and huge before her 
frowned, in its gloomy shadow, the tower in which 
K-ienzi was confined; she gazed at it long and wistfully, 
and then, turning av^ay, drew from the folds of her 
robe a small and sharp dagger. “ Let me save him for 
glory!” she murmured; “and this shall save me from 
dishonor ! ” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 137 


CHAPTER III. 

Holy Men. — Sagacious Deliberations. — Just Resolves. — And 
Sordid Motives to All. 

Enamored of the beauty, and almost equally so of the 
lofty spirit, of the Signora Cesarini, as was the warlike 
cardinal of Spain, love with him was not so master a 
passion as that ambition of complete success in all the 
active designs of life which had hitherto animated his 
character and signalized his career. Musing, as he left 
the signora, on her wish for the restoration of the 
Roman Tribune, his experienced and profound intel- 
lect ran swiftly through whatever advantages to his 
own political designs might result from that restora- 
tion. We have seen that it was the intention of the 
new pontiff to attempt the recovery of the patrimonial 
territories, now torn from him by the gripe of able and 
disaffected tyrants. With this view a military force 
was already in preparation, and the cardinal was already 
secretly nominated the chief. But the force was very 
inadequate to the enterprise; and Alhornoz depended 
much upon the moral strength of the cause in bring- 
ing recruits to his standard in his progress through 
the Italian states. The wonderful rise of Rienzi 
had excited an extraordinary enthusiasm in his favor 
through all the free populations of Italy. And this 
had been yet more kindled and inflamed by the influ- 
ential eloquence of Petrarch, who at that time, pos- 
sessed of a power greater than ever, before or since (not 
even excepting the sage of Eerneyj , wielded by a single 


138 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


literary man, had put forth his boldest genius in behalf 
of the Roman Tribune. Such a companion as Rienzi 
in the camp of the cardinal might he a magnet of attrac- 
tion to the youth and enterprise of Italy. On nearing 
Rome, he might himself judge how far* it would he 
advisable to reinstate Rienzi as a delegate of the papal 
power. And in the mean while the Roman’s influence 
might be serviceable, whether to awe the rebellious 
nobles or conciliate Rie stubborn people. On the other 
hand, the cardinal was shrewd enough to perceive that 
no possible good could arise from Rienzi ’s present con- 
finement. With every month it excited deeper and 
more universal sympathy. To his lonely dungeon 
turned half the hearts of republican Italy. Literature 
had leagued its new and sudden and therefore mighty 
and even disproportioned power with his cause; and 
the pope, without daring to be his judge, incurred the 
odium of being his jailer. “ A popular prisoner,” 
said the sagacious cardinal to himself, “ is the most 
dangerous of guests. Restore him as your servant, or 
destroy him as your foe! In this case I see no alterna- 
tive but acquittal or the knife 1 ” In these reflections 
that able plotter, deep in the Machiavelism of the age, 
divorced the lover from the statesman. 

Recurring now to the former character, he felt some 
disagreeable and uneasy forebodings at the earnest inter- 
est of his mistress. Fain would he have attributed, 
either to some fantasy of patriotism or some purpose of 
revenge, the anxiety of the Cesarini; and there was 
much in her stern and haughty character which favored 
that belief. But he was forced to acknowledge to him- 
self some jealous apprehension of a sinister and latent 
motive which touched his vanity and alarmed his love. 
“Howbeit,” he thought, as he turned from his unwill- 


RIEN2I, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 139 


ing fear, “ I can play with her at her own weapons; 
I can obtain the release of Rienzi, and claim my 
reward. If denied, the hand that opened the dungeon 
can again rivet the chain. In her anxiety is my 
power ! ” 

These thoughts the cardinal was still revolving in his 
palace, when he was suddenly summoned to attend the 
pontiff. 

The pontifical palace no longer exhibited the gorgeous 
yet graceful luxury of Clement VI., and the sarcastic 
cardinal smiled to himself at the quiet gloom of the 
antechambers. “ He thinks to set an example, this 
poor native of Limoges ! ” thought Albornoz ; “ and has 
but the mortification of finding himself eclipsed by the 
poorest bishop. He humbles himself, and fancies that 
the humility will be contagious.” 

His Holiness was seated before a small rude table 
bestrewed with papers, his face buried in his hands; the 
room was simply furnished, and in a small niche beside 
the casement was an ivory crucifix ; below, the death^s 
head and cross-bones, which most monks then intro- 
duced with a purpose similar to that of the ancients by 
the like ornaments, — mementos of the shortness of life, 
and therefore admonitions to make the best of it! On 
the ground lay a map of the patrimonial territory, with 
the fortresses in especial, distinctly and prominently 
marked. The pope gently lifted up his head as the 
cardinal was announced, and discovered a plain but 
sensible and somewhat interesting countenance. “ My 
son! ” said he, with a kindly courtesy to the lowly 
salutation of the proud Spaniard, “ scarcely wouldst thou 
imagine, after our long conference this morning, that 
new cares would so soon demand the assistance of thy 


140 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

counsels. Verily, the wreath of thorns stings sharp 
under the triple crown; and I sometimes long for the 
quiet abode of my old professor’s chair in Toulouse. 
My station is of pain and toil.” 

“ God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,” observed 
the cardinal, with pious and compassionate gravity. 

Innocent could scarcely refrain a smile as he replied : 
'' The lamb that carries the cross must have the strength 
of the lion. Since we parted, my son, I have had pain- 
ful intelligence: our couriers have arrived from the 
Campagna; the heathen rage furiously; the force of 
John di Vico has augmented fearfully, and the most 
redoubted adventurer of Europe has enlisted under his 
banner. ” 

“Does his Holiness,” cried the cardinal, anxiously, 
“speak of Fra Moreale, the Knight of St. John? ” 

“Of no less a warrior,” returned the pontiff. “I 
dread the vast ambition of that wild adventurer.” 

“ Your Holiness hath cause,” said the cardinal, dryly. 

“ Some letters of his have fallen into the hands of the 
servants of the Church; they are here: read them, my 
son.” 

Albornoz received and deliberately scanned the let- 
ters; this done, he replaced them on the table, and 
remained for a few moments silent and absorbed. 

“ What think you, my son?” said the pope, at length, 
with an impatient and even peevish tone. 

“ I think that, with Montreal’s hot genius and John 
di Vico’s frigid villany, your Holiness may live to envy, 
if not the quiet, at least the revenue, of the professor’s 
chair. ” 

“ How, cardinal ? ” said the pope, hastily, and with 
an angry flush on his pale brow. The cardinal quietly 
proceeded. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 141 

“ By these letters it seems that Montreal has written 
to all the commanders of free lances throughout Italy, 
offering the highest pay of a soldier to every man who 
will join his standard, combined with the richest plunder 
of a brigand. He meditates great schemes, then! — I 
know the man ! ” 

“ Well, and our course*? ” 

‘Hs plain,” said the cardinal, loftily, and with an 
eye that flashed with a soldier’s fire. " Not a moment 
is to be lost ! Thy son should at once take the field. 
Up with the Banner of the Church!” 

But are we strong enough? our numbers are few. 
Zeal slackens ! the piety of the Baldwins is no more ! ” 
Your Holiness knows well,” said the cardinal, that 
for the multitude of men there are two watchwords of 
■war, — Liberty and Keligion. If religion begins to 
fail, we must employ the profaner word. H^p with 
the Banner of the Church, and down with the tyrants! ’ 
We will proclaim equal laws and free government*,^ and, 
God willing, our camp shall prosper better with those 
promises than the tents of Montreal with the more vulgar 
shout of ‘Pay and Eapine.’ ” 

“Giles d’Albornoz,” said the pope, emphatically, 
and, warmed by the spirit of the cardinal, he dropped 
the wonted etiquette of phrase, “ I trust implicitly to 
you. Now the right hand of the Church, — hereafter, 
perhaps, its head. Too well I feel that the lot has 
fallen on a lowly place. My successor must requite my 
deficiencies. ” 

No changing hue, no brightening glance, betrayed to 

1 In correcting the pages of this work, in the year 1847 ■ 

strange coincidences between the present policy of the Roman 
Church and that by which in the fourteenth century it recovered both 
spiritual and temporal power, cannot fail to suggest themselves. 


142 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


the searching eye of the pope whatever emotion these 
words had called up in the breast of the ambitious 
cardinal. He bowed his proud head humbly as he 
answered, “Pray Heaven that Innocent VI. may long 
live to guide the Church to glory ! For Giles d’Albor- 
noz, less priest than soldier, the din of the camp, the 
breath of the war-steed, suggest the only aspirations 
which he ever dares indulge. But has your Holiness 
imparted to your servant all that — ” 

“Nay,” interrupted Innocent, “I have yet intelli- 
gence equally ominous. This John di Vico, — pest go 
with him ! — who still styles himself (the excommuni- 
cated ruffian !) Prefect of Rome, has so filled that 
unhappy city with his emissaries that we have well- 
nigh lost the seat of the apostle. Rome, long in 
anarchy , seems now in open rebellion. The nobles — 
sons of Belial ! — it is true, are once more humbled ; but 
how? One Baroncelli, anew demagogue, the fiercest, 
the most bloody that the fiend ever helped, has 
arisen, is invested by the mob with power, and uses it 
to butcher the people and insult the pontiff. Wearied 
of the crimes of this man (which are not even decorated 
by ability), the shout of the people day and night along 
the streets is for ‘Rienzi the Tribune.’ ” 

“Ha!” said the cardinal, “ Rienzi’s faults then are 
forgotten in Rome, and there is felt for him the same 
enthusiasm in that city as in the rest of Italy 1 ” 

“ Alas ! it is so. ” 

“It is well; I have thought of this: Rienzi can 
accompany my progress — ” 

“ My son ! the rebel, the heretic — ” 

“ By your Holiness’s absolution will become quiet 
subject and orthodox Catholic,” said Albornoz. “ Men 
are good or bad as they suit our purpose. What matters 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 143 


a virtue that is useless, or a crime that is useful, to us 1 
The army of the Church proceeds against tyrants, — it 
proclaims everywhere to the papal towns the restoration 
of their popular constitutions. Sees not your Holiness 
that the acquittal of Rienzi , the popular darling, will be 
hailed an earnest of your sincerity? Sees not your 
Holiness that his name will fight for us? Sees not 
your Holiness that the great demagogue Rienzi must 
he used to extinguish the little demagogue Baroncelli ? 
We must regain the Romans, whether of the city or 
whether in the seven towns of John di Vico. When 
they hear Rienzi is in our camp, trust me, we shall 
have a multitude of deserters from the tyrants, — trust 
me, we shall hear no more of Baroncelli.” 

“Ever sagacious,” said the pope, musingly; “it is 
true, we can use this man, but with caution. His 
genius is formidable — ” 

“ And therefore must be conciliated ; if we acquit, we 
must make him ours. My experience has taught me 
this: when you cannot slay a demagogue by law, crush 
him with honors. He must be no longer Tribune of 
the people. Give him the patrician title of Senator^ 
and he is then the lieutenant of the pope ! ” 

“ I will see to this, my son. Your suggestions please, 
but alarm me: he shall at least be examined; but if 
found a heretic — ” 

“ Should, I humbly advise, be declared a saint.” 

The pope bent his brow for a moment ; but the effort 
was too much for him, and after a moment’s struggle 
he fairly laughed aloud. 

“ Go to, my son,” said he, affectionately patting the 
cardinaBs sallow cheek, “ go to ! If the world heard 
thee, what would it say ? ” 

“ That Giles d’Albornoz had just enough religion to 


144 EIENZr, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


remember that the State is a Church, but not too much 
to forget that the Church is a State.” 

With these words the conference ended. That very 
evening the pope decreed that E,ienzi should be per- 
mitted the trial he had demanded. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 145 


CHAPTER IV. 

The Lady and the Page. 

It wanted three hours of midnight when Albornoz, 
resuming his character of gallant, despatched to the 
Signora Cesarini the following billet : — 

“Your commands are obeyed. Rienzi will receive an ex- 
amination on his faith. It is well that he should he prepared. 
It may suit your purpose, as to which I am so faintly enlight- 
ened, to appear to the prisoner what you are, — the obtainer 
of this grace. See how implicitly one noble heart can trust 
another ! I send by the bearer an order that will admit one 
of your servitors to the prisoner’s cell. Be it, if you will, 
your task to announce to him the new crisis of his fate. Ah ! 
madam, may fortune be as favorable to me, and grant me the 
same intercessor 1 From thy lips my sentence is to come.” 

As Albornoz finished this epistle, he summoned his 
confidential attendant, a Spanish gentleman, who saw 
nothing in his noble birth that should prevent his fulfill- 
ing the various bests of the cardinal. 

“ Alvarez, ” said he, “ these to the Signora Cesarini 
by another hand; thou art unknown to her household. 
Repair to the state tower; this to the governor admits 
thee. Mark who is admitted to the prisoner Cola di 
Rienzi ; know his name, examine whence he comes. Be 
keen, Alvarez. Learn by what motive the Cesarini 
interests herself in the prisoner’s fate. All, too, of her- 
self, birth, fortunes, lineage, would be welcome intelli- 
gence. Thou comprehendest me? It is well. One 

VOL. II. — 10 


/ 


146 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


caution, — thou hast no mission from, no connection 
with me. Thou art an officer of the prison or of the 
pope, — what thou wilt. Give me the rosary ; light the 
lamp before the crucifix ; place yon hair-shirt beneath 
those arms. I would have it appear as if meant to be 
hidden ! Tell Gomez that the Dominican preacher is to 
be admitted.” 

Those friars have zeal,” continued the cardinal to 
himself, as, after executing his orders, Alvarez with- 
drew. “ They would burn a man, — but only on the 
Bible ! They are worth conciliating, if the triple crown 
be really worth the winning ; were it mine, I would add 
the eagle’s plume to it.” 

And, plunged into the aspiring future, this bold man 
forgot even the object of his passion. In real life, after 
a certain age, ambitious men love, indeed ; but it is only 
as an interlude. And indeed with most men life has 
more absorbing though not more frequent concerns than 
those of love. Love is the business of the idle, but the 
idleness of the busy. 

The Cesarini was alone when the cardinal’s messenger 
arrived, and he was scarcely dismissed with a few lines, 
expressive of a gratitude which seemed to bear down all 
those guards with which the coldness of the signora usually 
fenced her pride, before the page Angelo was summoned 
to her presence. 

The room was dark with the shades of the gathering 
night when the youth entered, and he discerned but 
dimly the outline of the signora’s stately form ; but by 
the tone of her voice he perceived that she was deeply 
agitated. 

“ Angelo,” said she, as he approached, Angelo — ” 
and her voice failed her. She paused as for breath, and 
again proceeded. “ You alone have served us faithfully ; 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


147 


you alone shared our escape, our wanderings, our exile ; 
you alone know my secret, — you of my train alone are 
Eoman ! — Eoman ! it was once a great name, Angelo : 
the name has fallen ; but it is only because the nature of 
the Eoman race fell first. Haughty they are, but fickle ; 
fierce, but dastard ; vehement in promise, but rotten in 
their faith. You are a Eoman ; and though I have 
proved your truth, your very birth makes me afraid of 
falsehood.’’ 

, “ Madam,” said the page, “ I was but a child when 
you admitted me into your service, and I am yet only on 
the verge of manhood ; but boy though I yet be, I 
would brave the stoutest lance of knight or freebooter in 
defence of the faith of Angelo Villani to his liege lady 
and his native land.” 

“ Alas ! alas ! ” said the signora, bitterly, “ such have 

been the words of thousands of thy race. What 

have been their deeds] But I will trust thee, as I 

have trusted ever. I know that thou art covetous of 
honor, that thou hast youth’s comely and bright 
ambition.” 

“ I am an orphan and a bastard,” said Angelo, bluntly ; 
and that circumstance stings me sharply on to action : 
I would win my own name.” 

Thou shalt,” said the signora. “We shall live yet 
to reward thee. And now be quick. Bring hither 

one of thy page’s suits, — mantle and head-gear. Quick, 
I say, and whisper not to a soul what I have asked of 
thee.” 


148 


RIENZl, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTER V. 

The Inmate of the Tower. 

The night slowly advanced, and in the highest chamber 
of that dark and rugged tower which fronted the win- 
dows of the Cesarini’s palace sat a solitary prisoner. A 
single lamp burned before him on a table of stone, and 
threw its rays over an open Bible; and those stern but 
fantastic legends of the prowess of ancient Rome which 
the genius of Livy has dignified' into history. ^ A chain 
hung pendent from the vault of the tower, and confined 
the captive; but so as to leave his limbs at sufficient 
liberty to measure at will the greater part of the cell. 
Green and damp were the mighty stones of the walls, 
and through a narrow aperture, high out of reach, came 
the moonlight, and slept in long shadow over the rude 
floor. A bed at one corner completed the furniture of 
the room. Such for months had been the abode of the 
conqueror of the haughtiest barons, and the luxurious 
dictator of the stateliest city of the world! 

Care and travel and time and adversity had wrought 
their change in the person of Rienzi. The proportions 
of his frame had enlarged from the compact strength of 
earlier manhood; the clear paleness of his cheek was 
bespread with a hectic and deceitful glow. Even in his 
present studies, intent as they seemed, and genial though 
the lecture to a mind enthusiastic even to fanaticism, his 

^ “ Avea libri assai, suo Tito Livio, sue storie di Roma, la Bibbia 
et altri libri assai, non finava di studiare.” — Vila di Cola Rienzi, 
lib. ii. cap. 13. See translation to motto to Book VII. p. 117. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. 149 

eyes could not rivet themselves as of yore steadily to the 
page. The charm was gone from the letters. Every 
now and then he moved restlessly, started, resettled 
himself, and muttered broken exclamations like a man 
in an anxious dream. Anon, his gaze impatiently turned 
upward, about, around; and there was a strange and 
wandering fire in those large, deep eyes which might 
have thrilled the beholder with a vague and unaccount- 
able awe. 

Angelo had in the main correctly narrated the more 
recent adventures of Eienzi after his fall. He had first 
with Nina and Angelo betaken himself to Naples, and 
found a fallacious and brief favor with Louis, King of 
Hungary ; that harsh but honorable monarch had refused 
to yield his illustrious guest to the demands of Clement, 
but had plainly declared his inability to shelter him in 
safety. Maintaining secret intercourse with his partisans 
at Rome, the fugitive then sought a refuge with the 
Eremites, sequestered in the lone recesses of the Monte 
Maiella, where in solitude and thought he had passed a 
whole year, save the time consumed in his visit to and 
return from Florence. Taking advantage of the Jubilee 
in Rome, he had then, disguised as a pilgrim, traversed 
the vales and mountains still rich in the melancholy 
ruins of ancient Rome ; and entering the city, his rest- 
less and ambitious spirit indulged in new but vain con- 
spiracies! ^ Excommunicated a second time by the 
Cardinal di Ceccano, and again a fugitive, he shook 
the dust from his feet as he left the city, and raising 
his hands towards those walls, in which are yet traced 
the witness of the Tarquins, cried aloud, “ Honored as 
thy prince, persecuted as thy victim, — Rome, Rome, 
thou shalt yet receive me as thy conqueror!” 

^ Rainald. Ann. 1350, N. 4, E. 5. 


150 RIENZI, THE LAST OE T^IE TRIBUNES. 

Still disguised as a pilgrim, he passed unmolested 
through Italy into the court of the Emperor Charles of 
Bohemia, where the page, who had probably witnessed, 
had rightly narrated, his reception. It is doubtful, how- 
ever, whether the cgnduct of the emperor had been as 
chivalrous as appears by Angelo’s relation, or whether 
he had not delivered Bienzi-to the pontiff’s emissaries. 
At all events, it is certain that from Prague to Avignon 
the path of the fallen Tribune had been as one triumph. 
His strange adventures, his unbroken spirit, the new 
power that Intellect daily and wonderfully excited over 
the minds of the rising generation, the eloquence of 
Petrarch, and the common sympathy of the vulgar for 
fallen greatness, — all conspired to make Bienzi the hero 
of the age. Not a town through which he passed which 
would not have risked a siege for his protection; not 
a house that would not have sheltered him ; not a hand 
that would not have struck in his defence. Befusing 
all offers of aid, disdaining all occasion of escape, in- 
spired by his indomitable hope and his unalloyed 
belief in the brightness of his own destinies, the Tri- 
bune sought Avignon, and found a dungeon! 

These, his external adventures, are briefly and easily 
told; but who shall tell what passed within, — who nar- 
rate the fearful history of the heart, — who paint the 
rapid changes of emotion and of thought, the indignant 
grief, the stern dejection, the haughty disappointment 
that saddened while it never destroyed the resolve of 
that great soul? Who can say what must have been 
endured, what meditated, in the hermitage of Maiella, — 
on the lonely hills of the perished empire it had been his 
dream to restore, in the courts of barbarian kings, — and 
above all, on returning obscure and disguised, amidst the 
crowds of the Christian world, to the seat of his former 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 151 


power? What elements of memory, and in what a wild 
and fiery brain ! What reflections to be conned in the 
dungeons of Avignon, by a man who had pushed into 
all the fervor of fanaticism, — four passions, a single one 
of which has, in excess, sufiiced to wreck the strongest 
reason; passions which in themselves it is most difficult 
to combine, — the dreamer, the aspirant, the very nym- 
pholept of Freedom yet of Power, of Knowledge yet 
of Keligion! 

“ Ay, ” muttered the prisoner, “ ay, these texts are 
comforting, comforting. The righteous are not alway 
oppressed. ” With a long sigh he deliberately put aside 
the Bible, kissed it with great reverence, remained 
silent and musing for some minutes; and then, as a 
slight noise was heard at one corner of the cell, said 
softly, “ Ah, my friends, my comrades, the rats! it is 
their hour, — I am glad I put aside the bread for them ! ” 
His eye brightened as it now detected those strange and 
unsocial animals venturing forth through a hole in the 
wall, and, darkening the moonshine on the floor, steal 
fearlessly towards him. He flung some fragments of 
bread to them, and for some moments watched their 
gambols with a smile. “ Manchino, the white-faced ras- 
cal! he beats all the rest, — ha, ha! he is a superior 
wretch ; he commands the tribe, and will venture the 
first into the trap. How will he bite against the steel, 
the fine fellow! while all the ignobler herd will gaze at 
him afar off, and quake and fear, and never help. Yet 
if united, they might gnaw the trap and release their 
leader ! Ah, ye are base vermin, ye eat my bread ; yet 
if death came upon me, ye would riot on my carcass. 
Away ! ” and clapping his hands, the chain round him 
clanked harshly, and the noisome co-mates of his dun 
geon vanished in an instant. 


152 


KIENZI, THE LA.ST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


That singular and eccentric humor which marked 
Kienzi, and which had seemed a buffoonery to the stolid 
sullenness of the Roman nobles, still retained its old 
expression in his countenance, and he laughed loud as he 
saw the vermin hurry back to their hiding-place. 

“ A little noise and the clank of a chain, — fie, bow 
ye imitate mankind ! Again he sank into silence, 
and then heavily and listlessly drawing towards him 
the animated tales of Livy, said; “ An hour to mid- 
night ! — waking dreams are better than sleep. Well, 
history tells us how men have risen — ay, and nations 
too — after sadder falls than that of Rienzi or of Rome ! ” 

In a few minutes he was apparently absorbed in the 
lecture; so intent, indeed, was he in the task that he 
did not hear the steps which wound the spiral stairs 
that conducted to his cell, and it was not till the wards 
harshly grated beneath the huge key, and the door 
creaked on its hinges, that Rienzi, in amaze at intrusion 
at so unwonted an hour, lifted his eyes. The door had 
reclosed on the dungeon, and by the lonely and pale 
lamp he beheld a figure leaning, as for support, against 
the wall. The figure was wrapped from head to foot 
in the long cloak of the day, which, aided by a broad 
hat shaded by plumes, concealed even the features of 
the visitor. 

Rienzi gazed long and wistfully. 

“ Speak, ” he said at length, putting his hand to his 
brow. “ Methinks either long solitude has bewildered 
me, or, sweet sir, your apparition dazzles. I know you 
not. Am I sure, ” and Rienzi’s hair bristled while 
he slowly rose, — “am T sure that it is living man who 
stands before me? Angels have entered the prison- 
house before now. Alas ! an angel’s comfort never was 
more needed. ” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 153 


The stranger answered not, but the captive saw that 
his heart heaved even beneath his cloak; loud^ sobs 
choked his voice. At length, as by a violent effort, he 
sprung forward, and sunk at the Tribune’s feet. The 
disguising hat, the long mantle, fell to the ground; it 
was the face of a woman that looked upward through 
passionate and glazing tears, — the arms of a woman that 
clasped the prisoner’s knees! Rienzi gazed mute and 
motionless as stone. “’Powers and Saints of Heaven!” 
he murmured at last, “ do ye tempt me further I Is it — 
no, no — yet speak ! ” 

“ Beloved, adored ! — do you not know me ? ” 

“ It is — it is ! ” shrieked Rienzi, wildly, “ it is my 
Nina, my wife, my — ” His voice forsook him. 
Clasped in each other’s arms, the unfortunates for some 
moments seemed to have lost even the sense of delight at 
their reunion. It was as an unconscious and deep trance, 
through which something like a dream only faintly and 
indistinctly stirs. 

At length recovered, at length restored, the first 
broken exclamations, the first wild caresses of joy over, 
Nina lifted her head from her husband’s bosom, and 
gazed sadly on his countenance. “ Oh, what thou hast 
known since we parted, — what, since that hour when, 
borne on by thy bold heart and wild destiny, thou 
didst leave me in the imperial court, to seek again the 
diadem and find the chain! Ah! why did I heed thy 
commands, why suffer thee to depart alone ? How 
often in thy progress hitherward, in doubt, in danger, 
might this bosom have been thy resting-place, and this 
voice have whispered comfort to thy soul? Thou art 
well, my lord, my Cola? Thy pulse beats quicker 
than of old, — thy brow is furrowed. Ah ! tell me thou 
art well ! ” • 


154 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“Well,” said Kienzi, mechanically. “ Methinks so! 
The mind diseased blunts all sense of bodily decay. 
"VVell, — yes. And thou — thou, at least, art not changed 
save to maturer beauty. The glory of the laurel-wreath 
has not faded from thy brow. Thou shalt yet — ” 
Then breaking ofif abruptly, “ Eome, tell me of Eome ! 
And thou — how earnest thou hither? Ah! perhaps 
my doom is sealed, and in their mercy they have vouch- 
safed that I should see thee once more before the deaths- 
man blinds me. I remember, it is the grace vouchsafed 
to malefactors. When I was a lord of life and death, 
I too permitted the meanest criminal to say farewell to 
those he loved.” 

“ ISTo, not so. Cola ! ” exclaimed Nina, putting her 
hand before his mouth. “ I bring thee more auspi- 
cious tidings. To-morrow thou art to be heard. The 
favor of the court is propitiated. Thou wilt be 
acquitted. ” 

“ Ha ! speak again. ” 

“ Thou wilt be heard, my Cola, — thou must be 
acquitted! ” 

“ And Eome be free ! — Great God, I thank Thee ! ” 

The Tribune sank on his knees, and pever had his 
heart, in his youngest and purest hour, poured forth 
thanksgiving more fervent yet less selfish. When he 
rose again, the whole man seemed changed. His eye 
had resumed its earlier expressions of deep and serene 
command, majesty sat upon his brow, the sorrows of the 
exile were forgotten. In his sanguine and rapid thoughts, 
he stood once more the guardian of his country, — and its 
sovereign ! 

Nina gazed upon him with that intense and devoted 
worship which steeped her vainer and her harder qual- 
ities in all the fondness of the softest woman. “ Such,” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 155 


thought she, “was his look eight years ago, when he 
left my maiden chamber, full of the mighty schemes 
which liberated Eome; such his look when at the 
dawning sun he towered amidst the crouching barons and 
the kneeling population of the city he had made his 
throne ! ” 

“Yes, Nina!” said Kienzi, as he turned and caught 
her eye. “ My soul tells me that my hour is at hand. 
If they try me openly, they dare not convict, — if they 
acquit me, they dare not but restore. To-morrow, saidst 
thou, to-morrow 1 ” 

“ To-morrow, Eienzi ; he prepared ! ” 

“ I am, — for triumph ! But tell me what happy 
chance brought thee to Avignon ? ” 

“ Chance^ Cola ! ” said Nina, with reproachful tender- 
ness. “ Could I know that thou wert in the dungeons 
of the pontiff, and linger in idle security at Prague ! 
Even at the emperor’s court thou hadst thy partisans 
and favorers. Gold was easily procured. I repaired 
to Florence, disguised my name, and came hither to 
plot, to scheme, to win thy liberty, or to die with thee. 
Ah ! did not thy heart tell thee that morning and night 
the eyes of thy faithful Nina gazed upon this gloomy 
tower; and that one friend, humble though she be, 
never could forsake thee!’^ 

“ Sweet Nina! Yet — yet — at Avignon power yields 
not to beauty without reward. Remember there is a 
worse death than the pause of life.” 

Nina turned pale. “ Fear not,” she said, with a low 
but determined voice, — “ fear not that men^s lips should 
say Rienzi’s wife delivered him. None in this corrupted 
court know that I am thy wife.” 

“ Woman,” said the Tribune, sternly, “ thy lips elude 
the answer I would seek. In our degenerate time and 


156 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

land, thy sex and ours forget too basely what foulness 
writes a leprosy in the smallest stain upon a matron’s 
honor. That thy heart would never wrong me, I 
believe; but if thy weakness, thy fear of my death, 
should wrong me, thou art a bitterer foe to Rienzi than 
thQ swords of the Colonna. Nina, speak! ” 

“ Oh that my soul could speak I ” answered Nina. 
“ Thy words are music to me, and not a thought of 
mine but echoes them. Could I touch this hand, could 
I meet that eye, and not know that death were dearer 
to thee than shame'? Rienzi, when last we parted in 
sadness yet in hope, what were thy words to me ? ” 

“ I remember them well, ” returned the Tribune: “ 
leave thee,’ I said, ‘to keep alive at the emperor’s 
court, by thy genius, the Great Cause. Thou hast 
youth and beauty, and courts have lawless and ruffian 
suitors. I give thee no caution: it were beneath thee 
and me. But I leave thee the power of death.* And 
with that, Nina — ” 

“ Thy hands tremblingly placed in mine this dagger. 
I live, — need I say more?” 

“ My noble and beloved Nina, it is enough. Keep 
the dagger yet.” 

“Yes; till we meet in the Capitol of Rome ! *’ 

A slight tap was heard at the door; Nina regained, 
in an instant, her disguise. 

“It is on the stroke of midnight,” said the jailer, 
appearing at the threshold. 

“ I come,” said Nina. 

“ And thou hast to prepare thy thoughts, ” she whis- 
pered to Rienzi : “ arm all thy glorious intellect. Alas I 
is it again we part ? How my heart sinks ! ” 

The presence of the jailer at the threshold broke 
the bitterness of parting by abridging it. The false 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


157 


page pressed her lips on the prisoner’s hand, and left 
the cell. 

The jailer, lingering behind for a moment, placed a 
parchment on the table. It was the summons from 
the court appointed for the trial of the Tribune. 








158 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTER VI. 

The Scent does not Lie. — The Priest and the Soldier. 

On descending the stairs, Nina was met by Alvarez. 

“ Pair page, ” said the Spaniard, gayly, “ thy name, 
thou tellest me, is Villani, — Angelo Villani ? Why, I 
know thy kinsman, methinks. Vouchsafe, young mas- 
ter, to enter this chamber, and drink a night-cup to thy 
lady’s health; I would fain learn tidings of my old 
friends. ” 

“ At another time, ” answered the false Angelo, draw- 
ing the cloak closer round her face; “ it is late, — I am 
hurried. ” 

“ Nay, ” said the Spaniard, “ you escape me not so 
easily ; ” and he caught firm hold of the page’s shoulder. 

“ Unhand me, sir ! ” said Nina, haughtily, and almost 
weeping, for her strong nerves were yet unstrung. 
“Jailer, at thy peril, — unbar the gates.” 

“ So hot, ” said Alvarez , surprised at so great a waste 
of dignity in a page ; “ nay, I meant not to offend thee. 
May I wait on thy pageship to-morrow ? ” 

“ Ay, to-morrow,” said Nina, eager to escape. 

^ “ And meanwhile,” said Alvarez, “ I will accompany 
thee home, — we can cpnfer by the way. ” 

So saying, without regarding the protestations of the 
supposed page, he passed with Nina into the open air. 
“Your lady,” said he, carelessly, “is wondrous fair; 
her lightest will is law to the greatest noble of Avignon. 
Methinks she is of Naples, — is it so? Art thou dumb, 
sweet youth ? ” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 159 

The page did not answer, but with a step so rapid 
that it almost put the slow Spaniard out of breath, 
hastened along the narrow space between the tower and 
the palace of the Signora Cesarini; nor could all the 
efforts of Alvarez draw forth a single syllable from his 
reluctant companion, till they reached the gates of the 
palace, and he found himself discourteously left without 
the walls. 

“ A plague on the boy ! ” said he, biting his lips ; “ if 
the cardinal thrive as well as his servant, by ’r lady, 
Monsignore is a happy man! ” 

By no means pleased with the prospect of an inter- 
view with Albornoz, who, like most able men, valued 
the talents of those he employed exactly in proportion 
to their success, the Spaniard slowly returned home. 
With the license accorded to him, he entered the car- 
dinal’s chamber somewhat abruptly, and perceived him 
in earnest conversation with a cavalier, whose long 
mustache, curled upward, and the bright cuirass worn 
underneath his mantle, seemed to betoken him of mar- 
tial profession. Pleased with the respite, Alvarez hastily 
withdrew; and, in fact, the cardinal’s thoughts at that 
moment and for that night were bent upon other sub- 
jects than those of love. 

The interruption served, however, to shorten the 
conversation between Albornoz and his guest. The 
latter rose. 

“ I think, ” said he, buckling on a short and broad 
rapier, which he laid aside during the interview, — “I 
think, my lord cardinal, you encourage me to consider 
that our negotiation stands a fair chance of a prosperous 
close. Ten thousand florins, and my brother quits 
Viterbo, and launches the thunderbolt of the company 
on the lands of Eimini. On your part — ” 


160 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ On my part it is agreed, ” said the cardinal, “ that 
the army of the Church interferes not with the course 
of your brother’s arms, — there is peace between us. 
One warrior understands another ! ” 

“ And the word of Giles d’Albornoz, son of the royal 
race of Aragon, is a guarantee for the faith of a cardinal, ” 
replied the cavalier, with a smile. “ It is, my lord, in 
your former' quality that we treat. ” 

“There is my right hand,” answered Alhornoz, too 
politic to heed the insinuation. The cavalier raised it 
respectfully to his lips, and his armed tread was soon 
heard descending the stairs. 

“ Victory, ” cried Alhornoz, tossing his arms aloof, — 
“ victory, now thou art mine ! ” 

With that he rose hastily, deposited his papers in an 
iron chest, and opening a concealed door behind the 
arras, entered a chamber that rather resembled a monk’s 
cell than the apartment of a prince. Over a mean pallet 
hung a sword, a dagger, and a rude image of the Virgin. 
Without summoning Alvarez, the cardinal unrobed, and 
in a few moments was asleep. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 161 


CHAPTEK VII. 

Vaucluse and its Genius Loci. — Old Acquaintance renewed. 


The next day at early noon the cavalier whom our last 
chapter presented to the reader was seen mounted on 
a strong Norman horse, winding his way slowly along 
a green and pleasant path some miles from Avignon. 
At length he found himself in a wild and romantic 
valley, through which wandered that delightful river 
whose name the verse of Petrarch has given so beloved 
a fame. Sheltered by rocks, and in this part winding 
through the greenest banks, enamelled with a thousand 
wild-flowers and water- weeds, went the crystal Sorgia. 
Advancing farther, the landscape assumed a more sombre 
and sterile aspect. The valley seemed enclosed or shut 
in by fantastic rocks of a thousand shapes, down which 
dashed and glittered a thousand rivulets. And in the 
very wildest of the scene, the ground suddenly opened 
into a quaint and cultivated garden, through which, 
amidst a profusion of foliage, was seen a small and 
lonely mansion, — the hermitage of the place. The 
horseman was in the valley of the Vaucluse; and before 
his eye lay the garden and the house of Petrarch ! 
Carelessly, however, his eye scanned the consecrated 
spot; and unconsciously it rested for a moment upon 
a solitary figure seated musingly by the margin of the 
river. A large dog at the side of the noonday idler 
barked at the horseman as he rode on. “ A brave animal 
and a deep bay 1 ” thought the traveller; to him the dog 

VOL. II. — 11 


( 


162 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

seemed an object much more interesting than its master. 
And so — as the crowd of little men pass unheeding and 
unmoved those in whom posterity shall acknowledge 
the landmarks of their age — the horseman turned his 
glance from the poet ! 

Thrice blessed name! Immortal Florentine ! ^ not as 
the lover, nor even as the poet, do I bow before thy con- 
secrated memory, — venerating thee as one it were sacri- 
lege to introduce in this unworthy page, save by name 
and as a shadow , — but as the first who ever asserted 
to people and to prince the august majesty of letters; 
who claimed to genius the prerogative to influence 
states, to control opinion, to hold an empire over the 
hearts of men, and prepare events by animating passion 
and guiding thought ! What (though but feebly felt 
and dimly seen) — what do we yet owe to thee, if knowl- 
edge be now a power, if mind be a prophet and ^fate, 
foretelling and foredooming the things to come ! From 
the greatest to the least of us, to whom the pen is at 
once a sceptre and a sword, the low-born Florentine 
has been the arch-messenger to smooth the way and 
prepare the welcome. Yes ! even the meanest of the 
after-comers — even he who now vents his gratitude — 
is thine everlasting debtor! Thine how largely is the 
honor, if his labors, humble though they be, find an 
audience wherever literature is known; preaching in 
remotest lands the moral of forgotten revolutions, and 
scattering in the palace and the market-place the seeds 
that shall ripen into fruit when the hand of the sower 
shall be dust, and his very name, perhaps, be lost ! For 
few, alas ! are they whose names may outlive the grave; 
but the thoughts of every man who writes are made 

1 I need scarcely say that it is his origin, not his actual birtli, 
which entitles us to term Petrarch a Florentine. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 163 


undying, — others appropriate, advance, exalt them; 
and millions of minds, unknown, undreamed of, are 
required to produce the immortality of one! 

Indulging meditations very different from those which 
the idea of Petrarch awakens in a later time, the cava- 
lier pursued his path. 

The valley was long left behind, and the way grew 
more and more faintly traced, until it terminated in 
a wood, through whose tangled boughs the sunlight 
broke playfully. At length the wood opened into a 
wide glade, from which rose a precipitous ascent, crowned 
with the ruins of an old castle. The traveller dis- 
mounted, led his horse up the ascent, and, gaining the 
ruins, left his steed within one of the roofless chambers, 
overgrown with the longest grass and a profusion of wild 
shrubs; thence ascending, with some toil, a narrow and 
broken staircase, he found himself in a small room, less 
decayed than the rest, of which the roof and floor were 
yet whole. 

Stretched on the ground in his cloak, and leaning his 
head thoughtfully on his hand, was a man of tall stature 
and middle age. He lifted himself on his arm with 
great alacrity as the cavalier entered. 

“Well, Brettone, I have counted the hours, — what 
tidings? ” 

“ Albornoz consents. ” 

“ Glad news ! Thou givest me new life. Pardieu^ 
I shall breakfast all the better for this, my brother! 
Hast thou remembered that I am famishing ? ” 

Brettone drew from beneath his cloak a sufiiciently 
huge flask of wine, and a small pannier, tolerably well 
filled; the inmate of the tower threw himself upon the 
provant with great devotion. And both the soldiers, 
for such they were, stretched at length on the ground, 


164 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


regaled themselves with considerable zest, talking hastily 
and familiarly between every mouthful. 

“I say, Brettone, thou playest unfairly; thou hast 
already devoured more than half the pasty: push it 
hitherward. And so the cardinal consents ! What 
manner of man is he 1 Able as they say 1 ” 

“Quick, sharp, and earnest, with an eye of fire, few 
words, and comes to the point.” 

“Unlike a priest then, — a good brigand spoiled. 
What hast thou heard of the force he heads ? Ho, not 
so fast with the wine ! ” 

“ Scanty at present. He relies on recruits throughout 
Italy. ” 

“ What his designs for Kome ? There, my brother, 
there tends my secret soul ! As for these petty towns 
and petty tyrants, I care not how they fall or by 
whom. But the pope must not return to Borne. 
Borne must be mine. The city of a new empire, the 
conquest of a new Attila ! There every circumstance 
combines in my favor ! — the absence of the pope , the 
weakness of the middle class, the poverty of the popu- 
lace, the imbecile though ferocious barbarism of the 
barons, have long concurred to render Borne the most 
facile, while the most glorious conquest ! ” 

“ My brother, pray Heaven your ambition do not 
wreck you at last; you are ever losing sight of the 
land. Surely, with the immense wealth we are acquir- 
ing, we may — ” 

“ Aspire to be something greater than Free Com- 
panions, generals to-day, and adventurers to-morrow. 
Bememberest thou how the Norman sword won Sicily, 
and how the bastard William converted on the field of 
Hastings his baton into a sceptre ? I tell thee, Brettone, 
that this loose Italy has crowns on the hedge that a 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 165 


dexterous hand may carry off at the point of the lance. 
My course is taken; I will form the fairest army in 
Italy, and with it I will win a throne in the Capitol. 
Fool that I was six years ago ! Instead of deputing 
that mad dolt Pepin of Minorhino, had I myself deserted 
the Hungarian, and repaired with my soldiery to Rome, 
the fall of Rienzi would have been followed by the rise 
of Montreal. Pepin was outwitted, and threw away 
the prey after he had hunted it down. The lion shall 
not again trust the chase to the jackal ! ” 

“ Walter, thou speakest of the fate of Rienzi, let it 
warn thee ! ” 

" Rienzi ! ” replied Montreal ; “ I know the man ! 
In peaceful times or with an honest people, he would 
have founded a great dynasty. But he dreamed of laws 
and liberty for men who despise the first, and will not 
protect the last. We, of a harder race, know that a new 
throne must be built by the feudal and not the civil 
system; and into the city we must transport the camp. 
It is by the multitude that the proud Tribune gained 
power, by the multitude he lost it; it is by the sword 
that I will win it, and by the sword will I keep it! ” 

“ Rienzi was too cruel ; he should not have incensed 
the barons,” said Brettone, about to finish the flask, 
when the strong hand of his brother plucked it from 
him, and anticipated the design. 

“Pooh!” said Montreal, finishing the draught with 
a long sigh, “ he was not cruel enough. He sought only 
to be just, and not to distinguish between noble and 
peasant. He should have distinguished! He should 
have exterminated the nobles root and branch. But 
this no Italian can do. This is reserved for me.” 

“ Thou wouldst not butcher all the best blood of 
Rome ? ” 


166 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


"Butcher! No; but I would seize their lands, and 
endow with them a new nobility, — the hardy and fierce 
nobility of the North, who well know how to guard 
their prince, and will guard him, as the fountain of 
their own power. Enough of this now! And talking 
of Rienzi, — rots he still in his dungeon? ” 

“ Why, this morning, ere I left, I heard strange news. 
The town was astir, groups in every corner. They say 
that Rienzi’s trial was to be to-day, and from the names 
of the judges chosen, it is suspected that acquittal is 
already determined on.” 

" Ha ! thou shouldst have told me of this before. ” 

" Should he be restored to Rome , would it militate 
against thy plans ? ” 

“ Humph ! I know not, — deep thought and dex- 
terous management would be needed. I would fain 
not leave this spot till I hear what is decided on.” 

“ Surely, Walter, it would have been wiser and safer 
to have stayed with thy soldiery, and intrusted me with 
the absolute conduct of this affair.” 

“Not so,” answered Montreal; “thou art a bold 
fellow enough, and a cunning, but my head in these 
matters is better than thine. Besides,” continued the 
knight, lowering his voice and shading his face, “ I 
had vowed a pilgrimage to the beloved river and the 
old trysting-place. Ah me ! — But all this, Brettone, 
thou understandest not, — let it pass. As for my safety , 
since we have come to this amnesty with Albornoz, I 
fear but little danger even if discovered; besides, I 
want the florins. There are those in this country, 
Germans, who could eat an Italian army at a meal, 
whom I would fain engage, and their leaders want 
earnest-money, — the griping knaves! How are the 
cardinal’s florins to be paid?” 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 167 

" Half now, half when thy troops are before Rimini ! ” 

“ Rimini ! the thought whets my sword. Remem- 
berest thou how that accursed Malatesta drove me from 
Aversa,^ broke up my camp, and made me render to him 
all my booty ? There fell the work of years ! But for 
that, my banner now would he floating over St. Angelo. 
I will pay back the debt with fire and sword, ere the 
summer has shed its leaves.” 

The fair countenance of Montreal grew terrible as he 
uttered these words; his hands griped the handle of his 
sword, and his strong frame heaved visibly, — tokens of- 
the fierce and unsparing passions by the aid of which 
a life of rapine and revenge had corrupted a nature 
originally full no less of the mercy than the courage of 
Provencal chivalry. 

Such was the fearful man who now (the wildness of 
his youth sobered, and his ambition hardened and con- 
centred) was the rival with Rienzi for the mastery of 
Rome. 

1 This Malatesta, a signor of illustrious family, was one of the 
most skilful warriors in Italy. He and his brother Galeotto had 
been raised to the joint tyranny of Rimini by the voice of its citi- 
zens. After being long the foes of the Church, they were ultimately 
named as its captains by the Cardinal Albornoz. 


168 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

The Crowd. — The Trial, — The Verdict. — The Soldier and the 
Page. 

It was on the following evening that a considerable 
crowd had gathered in the streets of Avignon. It was 
the second day of the examination of Rienzi, and with 
every moment was expected the announcement of the 
verdict. Amongst the foreigners of all countries assem- 
bled in that seat of the papal splendor, the interest was 
intense. The Italians, even of the highest rank, were 
in favor of the Tribune, the French against him. As 
for the good townspeople of Avignon themselves, they 
felt but little excitement in anything that did not bring 
money into their pockets ; and if it had been put to the 
secret vote, no doubt there would have been a vast 
majority for burning the prisoner, as a marketable 
speculation ! 

Amongst the crowd was a tall man in a plain and 
rusty suit of armor, but with an air of knightly bearing 
which somewhat belied the coarseness of his mail; he 
wore no helmet, but a small morion of black leather, 
with a long projecting shade, much used by wayfarers 
in the hot climates of the south. A black patch covered 
nearly the whole of one cheek, and altogether he bore 
the appearance of a grim soldier, with whom war had 
dealt harshly, both in purse and person. 

Many were the jests at the shabby swordsman’s 
expense with which that lively population amused 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 169 


their impatience; and though the shade of the morion 
concealed his eyes, an arch and merry smile about the 
corners of his mouth showed that he could take a jest 
at himself. 

Well,” said one of the crowd (a rich Milanese), “ I 
am of a state that was free, and I trust the people’s 
man will have justice shown him.” 

“Amen,” said a grave Florentine. 

“They say,” whispered a young student from Paris, 
to a learned doctor of laws with whom he abode, “ that 
his defence has been a masterpiece.” 

“ He hath taken no degrees,” replied the doctor, 
doubtingly. “Ho, friend, why dost thou push me so? 
thou hast rent my robe.” 

This was said to a minstrel, or jongleur, who, with 
a small lute slung round him, was making his way 
with great earnestness through the throng. 

“I beg pardon, worthy sir,” said the minstrel; “but 
this is a scene to he sung of! Centuries hence, ay, 
and in lands remote, legend and song will tell the for- 
tunes of Cola di Pienzi, the friend of Petrarch and the 
Tribune of Pome ! ” 

The young French student turned quickly round to 
the minstrel, with a glow on his pale face; not sharing 
the general sentiments of his countrymen against Pienzi, 
he felt that it was an era in the world when a minstrel 
spoke thus of the heroes of intellect, not of war. 

At this time the tail soldier was tapped impatiently 
on the back. 

“T pray thee, great sir,” said a sharp and imperious 
voice, “ to withdraw that tall bulk of thine a little on 
one side , — I cannot see through thee ; and I would fain 
my eyes were among the first to catch a glimpse of 
Pienzi as he passes from the court.” 


170 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

“Fair sir page,” replied the soldier, good-humoredly, 
as he made way for Angelo Villani, “ thou wilt not 
always find that way in the world is won by command- 
ing the strong. When thou art older, thou wilt beard 
the weak, and the strong thou wilt wheedle.” 

“I must change my nature, then,” answered Angelo 
(who was of somewhat small stature, and not yet come 
to his full growth), trying still to raise himself above 
the heads of the crowd. 

The soldier looked at him approvingly; and as he 
looked he sighed, and his lips worked with some strange 
emotion. 

“ Thou speakest well,” said he , after a pause. “ Pardon 
me the rudeness of the question; but art thou of Italy ? 
Thy tongue savors of the Poman dialect; yet I have 
seen lineaments like thine on this side the Alps. ” 

“ It may be, good fellow,” said the page, haughtily; 
“ but I thank Heaven that I am of Pome. ” 

At this moment a loud shout burst from that part of 
the crowd nearest the court. The sound of trumpets 
again hushed the throng into deep and breathless silence, 
while the pope’s guards, ranged along the space con- 
ducting from the court, drew themselves up more erect, 
and fell a step or two back upon the crowd. 

As the trumpet ceased, the voice of a herald was 
heard, but it did not penetrate within several yards of 
the spot where Angelo and the soldier stood ; and it 
was only by a mighty shout that in a moment circled 
through and was echoed back by the wild multitude, 
by the waving of kerchiefs from the windows, by broken 
ejaculations, which were caught up from lip to lip, that 
the page knew that Pienzi was acquitted. 

“I would I could see his face!” sighed the page, 
querulously. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 171 


“ And thou shall,” said the soldier; and he caught 
up the boy in his arms, and pressed on with the strength 
of a giant, parting the living stream from right to left, 
as he took his way to a place near the guards, and by 
which Kienzi was sure to pass. 

The page, half pleased, half indignant, struggled a 
little, hut finding it in vain, consented tacitl}^ to what 
he felt an outrage on his dignity. 

“ Never mind! ” said the soldier; “ thou art the first I 
ever willingly raised above myself; and I do it now for 
the sake of thy fair face, which reminds me of one I 
loved. ” 

But these last words were spoken low, and the hoy, 
in his anxiety to see the hero of Borne, did not hear or 
heed them. Presently Bienzi came by; two gentle- 
men, of the pope’s own following, walked by his side. 
He moved slowly, amidst the greetings and clamor of 
the crowd, looking neither to the right nor left. His 
bearing was firm and collected, and, save by the fiush 
of his cheek, there was no external sign of joy or excite- 
ment. Blowers dropped from every balcony on his 
path; and just when he came to a broader space, where 
the ground was somewhat higher, and where he was in 
fuller view of the houses around, he paused; and, 
uncovering, acknowledged the homage he had received 
with a look, a gesture, which each who beheld never 
forgot. It haunted even that gay and thoughtless court, 
when the last tale of Bienzi’s life reached their ears; 
and Angelo, clinging then round that soldier’s neck, 
recalled — But we must not anticipate. 

It was not, however, to the dark tower that Bienzi 
returned. His home was prepared at the palace of the 
Cardinal d’Albornoz. The next day he was admitted 


172 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

to the pope’s presence, and on the evening of that day 
he was proclaimed Senator of Rome. 

Meanwhile the soldier had placed Angelo on the 
ground; and as the page faltered out no courteous 
thanks, he interrupted him in a sad and kind voice, the 
tone of which struck the page forcibly, so little did it 
suit the rough and homely appearance of the man. 

“We part,” he said, “as strangers, fair hoy; and 
since thou sayest thou art of Rome, there is no reason 
why my heart should have warmed to thee as it has 
done; yet if ever thou wantest a friend, seek him” — 
and the soldier’s voice sunk into a whisper — “ in Walter 
de Montreal.” 

Ere the page recovered his surprise at that redoubted 
name, which his earliest childhood had been taught to 
dread, the Knight of St. John had vanished amongst 
the crowd. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 173 


CHAPTER IX. 

Albornoz and Nina. 

But the eyes which above all others thirsted for a 
glimpse of the released captive, were forbidden that 
delight. Alone in her chamber, Nina awaited the 
result of the trial. She heard the shouts, the exclama- 
tions, the tramp of thousands along the street; she felt 
that the victory was won; and, her heart long over- 
charged, she burst into passionate tears. The return 
of Angelo soon acquainted her with all that had passed; 
but it somewhat chilled her joy to find Rienzi was the 
guest of the dreaded cardinal. That shock, in which 
certainty, however happy, replaces suspense, had so 
powerful an effect on her frame, joined to her loathing 
fear of a visit from the cardinal, that she became for 
three days alarmingly ill ; and it was only on the fifth 
day from that which saw Rienzi endowed with the rank 
of Senator of Rome, that she was recovered sufficiently 
to admit Albornoz to her presence. 

The cardinal had sent daily to inquire after her 
health; and his inquiries, to her alarmed mind, had 
appeared to insinuate a pretension to the right to make 
them. Meanwhile Albornoz had had enough to divert 
and occupy his thoughts. Having bought off the for- 
midable Montreal from the service of John di Vico, 
one of the ablest and fiercest enemies of the Church, he 
resolved to march to the territories of that tyrant as 
expeditiously as possible, and so not to allow him time 


174 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

to obtain the assistance of any other hand of the merce- 
nary adventurers who found Italy the market for their 
valor. Occupied with raising troops, procuring money, 
corresponding with the various free states, and estab- 
lishing alliances in aid of his ulterior and more ambi- 
tious projects at the court of Avignon, the cardinal 
waited with tolerable resignation the time when he 
might claim from the Signora Cesarini the reward to 
which he deemed himself entitled. Meanwhile he had 
held his first conversations with Eienzi, and, under 
the semblance of courtesy to the acquitted Tribune, 
Albornoz had received him as his guest, in order to 
make himself master of the character and disposition 
of one in whom he sought a minister and a tool. That 
miraculous and magic art, attested by the historians of 
the time, which Eienzi possessed over every one with 
whom he came into contact, however various in temper, 
station, or opinions, had not deserted him in his inter- 
view with the pontiff. So faithfully had he described 
the true condition of Eome, so logically had he traced 
the causes and the remedies of the evils she endured, 
so sanguinely had he spoken of his own capacities for 
administering her affairs, and so brilliantly had he 
painted the prospects which that administration opened 
to the weal of the Church, and the interests of the pope, 
that Innocent, though a keen and shrewd and some- 
what sceptical calculator of human chances, was entirely 
fascinated by the eloquence of the Eoman. 

“Is this the man," he is reported to have said, 
“ whom for twelve months we have treated as a pris- 
oner and a criminal? Would that it were on his 
shoulders only that the Christian empire reposed ! ” 

At the close of the interview he had, with every 
mark of favor and distinction, conferred upon Eienzi 


illEN2!l, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. l75 


the rank of senator, which, in fact, was that of Viceroy 
of Rome, and had willingly acceded to all the projects 
which the enterprising Rienzi had once more formed, — 
not only for recovering the territories of the Church, 
but for extending the dictatorial sway of the Seven- 
hilled City over the old dependencies of Italy. 

Alhornoz, to whom the pope retailed this conversa- 
tion, was somewhat jealous of the favor the new senator 
had so suddenly acquired, and immediately on his return 
home sought an interview with his guest. In his heart 
the lord cardinal, emphatically a man of action and 
business, regarded Rienzi as one rather cunning than 
wise, rather fortunate than great, — a mixture of the 
pedant and the demagogue. But after a long and scru- 
tinizing conversation with the new senator, even he 
yielded to the spell of his enchanting and master intel- 
lect. Reluctantly Alhornoz confessed to himself that 
Rienzi ’s rise was not the thing of chance; yet more 
reluctantly he perceived that the senator was one whom' 
he might treat with as an equal, but could not rule as 
a minion. And he entertained serious doubts whether 
it would be wise to reinstate him in a power which he 
evinced the capacity to wield and the genius to extend. 
Still, however, he did not repent the share he had taken 
in Rienzi ^s acquittal. His presence in a camp so thinly 
peopled was a matter greatly to be desired ; and through 
his influence the cardinal more than ever trusted to 
enlist the Romans in favor of his enterprise for the 
recovery of the territory of St. Peter! 

Rienzi, who panted once more to behold his Hina, 
endeared to him by trial and absence as by fresh bridals, 
was not however able to discover the name she had 
assumed at Avignon; and his residence with the car- 
dinal, closely hut respectfully watched as he was, forbade 


176 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


Nina all opportunity of corresponding with him. Some 
half-bantering hints which Alhornoz had dropped upon 
the interest taken in his welfare by the most celebrated 
beauty of Avignon had filled him with a vague alarm 
which he trembled to acknowledge even to himself. 
But the volto sciolto'^ which, in common with all 
Italian politicians, concealed whatever were his pen- 
sieri stretti^ enabled him to baffle completely the jealous 
and lynx-like observation of the cardinal. Nor had 
Alvarez been better enabled to satisfy the curiosity of 
his master. He had indeed sought the page Villani; 
but the imperious manner of that wayward and haughty 
boy had cut short all attempts at cross-examination, 
and all he could ascertain was that the real Angelo 
Villani was not the Angelo Villani who had visited 
Bienzi. 

Trusting at last that he should learn all, and inflamed 
by such passion and such hope as he was capable of 
feeling, Albornoz now took his way to the Cesarini’s 
palace. 

He was ushered with due state into the apartment of 
the signora. He found her pale, and with the traces 
of illness upon her noble and statue -like features. She 
rose as he entered; and when he approached, she half 
bent her knee, and raised his hand to her lips. Sur- 
prised and delighted at a reception so new, the cardinal 
hastened to prevent the condescension; retaining both 
her hands, he attempted gently to draw them to his 
heart. 

“Fairest!” he whispered, “couldst thou know how 
I have mourned thy illness, — and yet it has but left 
thee more lovely, as the rain only brightens the flower. 

1 “Volto sciolto, pensieri stretti,” — the countenance open, the 
thoughts restrained. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 177 


Ah ! happy if I have promoted thy lightest wish, and if 
in thine eyes I may henceforth seek at once an angel 
to guide me and a paradise to reward.” 

Nina, releasing her hand, waved it gently, and 
motioned the cardinal to a seat. Seating herself at a 
little distance, she then spoke with great gravity and 
downcast eyes, — 

“ My lord, it is your intercession, joined to his own 
innocence, that has released from yonder tower the 
elected governor of the people of E-ome. But freedom 
is the least of the generous gifts you have conferred; 
there is a greater in a fair name vindicated, and right- 
ful honors re-bestowed. For this I rest ever your debtor ; 
for this, if I bear children they shall be taught to bless 
your name; for this the historian who recalls the deeds 
of this age and the fortunes of Cola di Rienzi shall 
add a new chaplet to the wreaths you have already won. 
Lord Cardinal, I may have erred. I may have offended 
yoUj — you may accuse me of woman’s artifice. Speak 
not, wonder not, hear me out. I have hut one excuse, 
when say that I held justified any means short of 
dishonor, to save the life and restore the fortunes of 
Cola di Rienzi. Know, my lord, that she who now 
addresses you is his wife.” 

The cardinal remained motionless and silent; hut 
his sallow countenance grew flushed from the brow to 
the neck, and his thin lips quivered for a moment, and 
then broke into a withering and bitter smile. At length 
he rose from his seat very slowly, and said, in a voice 
trembling with passion, — 

“ It is well, madam. Giles d’Albornoz has been, 
then a puppet in the hands, a stepping-stone in the rise, 
of the plebeian demagogue of Rome. You but played 
upon me for your own purposes ; and nothing short of a 

VOL. II. — 12 


178 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


cardinal of Spain and a prince of the royal blood of 
Aragon was meet to be the instrument of a mounte- 
bank’s juggle! Madam, yourself and your husband 
might justly be accused of ambition — ” 

“Cease, my lord,” said Nina, with unspeakable 
dignity; “whatever offence has been committed against 
you was mine alone. Till after our last interview, 
Eienzi knew not even of my presence at Avignon.” 

“ At our last interview, lady (you do well to recall 
it!), methinks there was a hinted and implied contract. 
I have fulfilled my part, — I claim yours. Mark me ! 
I do not forego that claim. As easily as I rend this 
glove can I rend the parchment which proclaims thy 
husband ‘the Senator of Rome.’ The dungeon is not 
death, and its door will open twice. 

“My lord, my lord!” cried Nina sick with terror; 
“ wrong not so your noble nature, your great name, 
your sacred rank, your chivalric blood. You are of the 
knightly race of Spain, — yours not the sullen, low, 
and inexorable vices that stain the petty tyrants of this 
unhappy land. You are no Visconti, no Castra,^ani, — 
you cannot stain your laurels with revenge upon a 
woman. Hear me,” she continued, and she fell 
abruptly at his feet; “men dupe, deceive our sex, 
and for selfish purposes; they are pardoned, even by 
their victims. Did I deceive you with a false hope? 
Well, what my object, what my excuse? My hus- 
band’s liberty, my land’s salvation! Woman, — my 
lord, alas! your sex too rarely understand her weak- 
ness or her greatness ! Erring, all human as she is to 
others, God gifts her with a thousand virtues to the 
one she loves! It is from that love that she alone 
drinks her nobler nature. For the hero of her worship 
she has the meekness of the dove, the devotion of the 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 179 

saint; for his safety in peril, for his rescue in misfor- 
tune, her vain sense imbibes the sagacity of the serpent, 
her weak heart the courage of the lioness! It is this 
which, in absence, made me mask my face in smiles, 
that the friends of the houseless exile might not despair 
of his fate ; it is this which brought me through forests 
beset with robbers, to watch the stars upon yon solitary 
tower ; it was this which led my steps to the revels of 
your hated court, this which made me seek a deliv- 
erer in the noblest of its chiefs; it is this which has at 
last opened the dungeon door to the prisoner now within 
your halls; and this, Lord Cardinal,” added Nina, 
rising, and folding her arms upon her heart, — “ this, 
if your anger seeks a victim, will inspire me to die 
without a groan hut without dishonor! ” 

Alhornoz remained rooted to the ground; amaze- 
ment, emotion, admiration, all busy at his heart. 
He gazed at Nina’s flashing eyes and heaving bosom 
as a warrior of old upon a prophetess inspired. His 
eyes were riveted to hers as by a spell. He tried to 
speak, hut his voice failed him. Nina continued: — 

“Yes, my lord; these are no idle words! If you 
seek revenge, it is in your power. Undo what you 
have done. Give Kienzi back to the dungeon or to 
disgrace, and you are avenged; hut not on him. All 
the hearts of Italy shall become to him a second N ina ! 
I am the guilty one, and I the sufferer. Hear me 
swear, — in that instant which sees new wrong to 
Rienzi, this hand is my executioner. My lord, I sup- 
plicate you no longer ! ” 

Alhornoz continued deeply moved. Nina hut rightly 
judged him when she distinguished the aspiring Span- 
iard from the barbarous and unrelenting voluptuaries of 
Italy. Despite the profligacy that stained his sacred 


180 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


robe, — despite all the acquired and increasing callous- 
ness of a hard, scheming, and sceptical man, cast amidst 
the worst natures of the worst of times, — there lingered 
yet in his soul much of the knightly honor of his race 
and country. High thoughts and daring spirits touched 
a congenial string in his heart, and not the less in that 
he had but rarely met them in his experience of camps 
and courts. For the first time in his life he felt that 
he had seen the woman Who could have contented him 
even with wedlock, and taught him the proud and 
faithful love of which the minstrels of Spain had sung. 
He sighed, and still gazing on Nina, approached her, 
almost reverentially; he knelt and kissed the hem of 
her robe. “Lady,” he said, “I would I could believe 
that you have altogether read my nature aright; but I 
were indeed lost to all honor, and unworthy of gentle 
birth, if I still harbored a single thought against the 
peace and virtue of one like thee. Sweet heroine,” he 
continued, “so lovely yet so pure, so haughty and 
yet so soft, thou hast opened to me the brightest page 
these eyes have ever scanned in the blotted volume of 
mankind. Mayest thou have such happiness as life can 
give; but souls such as thine make their nest, like the 
eagle, upon rocks and amidst the storms. Fear me no 
more, think of me no more, unless hereafter, when 
thou hearest men speak of Giles d’Albornoz, thou 
mayest say in thine own heart,” — and here the car- 
dinal’s lip curled with scorn,- — -“he did not renounce 
every feeling worthy of a man when ambition and fate 
endued him with the surplice of the priest.” 

The Spaniard was gone before Nina could reply. 


BOOK VIII 


THE GRAND COMPANY. 

Montreal nourissoit de plus vastes projets . . . il donnoit k sa 
compagnie un gouvernement regulier. . . . Par cette discipline il 
faisoit regner I’abondance dans son camp ; les gens de guerre ne 
parloient, en Italie, que des richesses qu’on acqueroit a son service. 
— SiSMONDi, Hist, des Republiques Italiennes, tom. vi. c. 42. 

Montreal cherished more vast designs ... he subjected his 
company to a regular system of government. . . . By means of 
this discipline he kept his camp abundantly supplied ; and military 
adventurers in Italy talked of nothing but the wealth won in his 
service. — SismondPs Hist, of Italian Republics. 


jUI- 


* 

. , r . , 


BOOK VIII. 


CHAPTEE I. 

The Encampment. 

It was a most lovely day, in the very glow and meridian 
of an Italian summer, when a small band of horsemen 
were seen winding a hill which commanded one of the 
fairest landscapes of Tuscany. At their head was a 
cavalier in a complete suit of chain-armor, the links of 
which were so fine that they resembled a delicate and 
curious network, hut so strongly compacted that they 
would have resisted spear or sword no less effectually 
than the heaviest corselet, while adapting themselves 
exactly and with ease to every movement of the light 
and graceful shape of the rider. He wore a hat of dark 
green velvet shaded by long plumes, while of two squires 
behind, the one bore his helmet and lance, the other 
led a strong war-horse, completely cased in plates of 
mail, which seemed, however, scarcely to encumber its 
proud and agile paces. The countenance of the cavalier 
was comely, but strongly marked, and darkened, by long 
exposure to the suns of many climes, to a deep bronze 
hue ; a few raven ringlets escaped from beneath his hat 
down a cheek closely shaven. The expression of his 
features was grave and composed even to sadness; nor 
could all the loveliness of the unrivalled scene before 
him dispel the quiet and settled melancholy of his eyes. 


184 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


Besides the squires, ten horsemen, armed cap-a-pie, at- 
tended the knight; and the low and murmured conversa- 
tion they carried on at intervals, as well as their long 
fair hair, large stature, thick, short beards, and the 
studied and accurate equipment of their arms and steeds, 
bespoke them of a hardier and more warlike race than 
the children of the South. The cavalcade was closed 
with a man almost of gigantic height, bearing a banner 
richly decorated, wherein was wrought a column, with 
the inscription, “Alone amidst ruins.” Fair, in- 
deed, was the prospect which, with every step, expanded 
yet more widely its various beauty. Bight before 
stretched a long vale, now covered with green woodlands 
glittering in the yellow sunlight, now opening into nar- 
row plains bordered by hillocks, from whose mosses of 
all hues grew fantastic and odorous shrubs; while, wind- 
ing amidst them, a broad and silver stream broke into 
light at frequent intervals, snatched by wood and hillock 
from the eye, only to steal upon it again in sudden and 
bright surprise. The opposite slope of gentle mountains, 
as well as that which the horsemen now descended, was 
covered with vineyards, trained in alleys and arcades; 
and the clustering grape laughed from every leafy and 
glossy covert, as gayly as when the fauns held a holiday 
in the shade. The eye of the cavalier roved listlessly 
over this enchanting prospect, sleeping in the rosiest 
light of a Tuscan heaven, and then became fixed with a 
more earnest attention on the gray and frowning walls of 
a distant castle which, high upon the steepest of the 
opposite mountains, overlooked the valley. 

“ Behold, ” he muttered to himself, “ how every Eden in 
Italy hath its curse ! Wherever the land smiles fairest, 
be sure to find the brigand’s tent and the tyrant’s castle ! ” 

Scarce had these thoughts passed through his mind, 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 185 

ere the shrill and sudden blast of a bugle that sounded 
close amongst the vineyards by the side of the path, 
startled the whole group. The cavalcade halted abruptly. 
The leader made a gesture to the squire who led his war- 
horse. The noble and practised animal remained per- 
fectly still, save by champing its hit restlessly, and 
moving its quick ear to and fro, as aware of a coming 
danger; while the sqpire, unencumbered by the heavy 
armor of the Germans, plunged into the thicket and dis- 
appeared. He returned in a few minutes, already heated 
and breathless. 

“We must be on our guard,” he whispered; “I see 
the glimmer of steel through the vine-leaves.” 

“ Our ground is unhappily chosen, ” said the knight, 
hastily bracing on his helmet and leaping on his charger ; 
and waving his hand towards a broader space in the 
road, which would permit the horsemen more room to 
act in union, with his small hand he made hastily to the 
spot, — the armor of the soldiers rattling heavily as two 
by two they proceeded on. 

The space to which the cavalier had pointed was a 
green semicircle of several yards in extent, hacked by 
tangled copses of brushwood sloping down to the vale 
below. They reached it in safety ; they drew up breast 
to breast in the form of a crescent; every visor closed 
save that of the knight, who looked anxiously and keenly 
round the landscape. 

“ Hast thou heard, Giulio, ” he said to his favorite 
squire (the only Italian of the hand), “ whether any 
brigands have been seen lately in these parts ? ” 

“No, my lord; on the contrary, I am told that every 
lance hath left the country to join the Grand Company 
of Era Moreale. The love of his pay and plunder hath 
drawn away the mercenaries of every Tuscan signor, ” 


186 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


As he ceased speaking, the bugle sounded again from 
nearly the same spot as before; it was answered by a 
brief and martial note from the very rear of the horse- 
men. At the same moment, from the thickets behind, 
broke the gleam of mail and spears. One after another, 
rank after rank, from the copse behind them emerged 
men-at-arms; while suddenly, from the vines in front, 
still greater numbers poured forth with loud and fierce 
shouts. 

“ For God, for the Emperor, and for the Colonna ! ” 
cried the knight, closing his visor; and the little hand, 
closely serried, the lance in every rest, broke upon the 
rush of the enemy in front. A score or so, borne to the 
ground by the charge, cleared a path for the horsemen, 
and, without waiting the assault of the rest, the knight 
wheeled his charger, and led the way down the hill, 
almost at full gallop, despite the roughness of the descent ; 
a flight of arrows despatched after them fell idly on their 
iron mail. 

“ If they have no horse, ” cried the knight, “ we are 
saved! ” 

And, indeed, the enemy seemed scarcely to think of 
pursuing them, but, gathered on the brow of a hill, 
appeared contented to watch their flight. 

Suddenly a curve in the road brought them before 
a broad and wide patch of waste land, which formed 
almost a level surface, interrupting the descent of the 
mountain. On the commencement of this waste, drawn 
up in still array, the sunlight broke on the breastplates 
of a long line of horsemen, whom the sinuosities of the 
road had hitherto concealed from the knight and his 
party. 

The little troop halted abruptly, — retreat, advance, 
alike cut off; gazing first at the foe before them, that 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 187 


remained still as a cloud, every eye was then turned 
toAvards the knight. 

“ An thou wouldst, my lord, ” said the leader of the 
Northmen, perceiving the irresolution of their chief, 
“ we will fight to the last. You are the only Italian I 
ever knew whom I would willingly die for ! ” 

This rude profession was received with a sympa- 
thetic murmur from the rest, and the soldiers drew closer 
around the knight. “ Nay, my brave fellows, ” said 
the Colonna, lifting his visor, “ it is not in so inglo- 
rious a field, after such various fortunes, that we are 
doomed to perish. If these be brigands, as we must 
suppose, we can yet purchase our way. If the troops 
of some signor, we are strangers to the feud in which 
lie is engaged. Give me yon banner, — I will ride on 
to them.” 

“ Nay, my lord,” said Giulio; “ such marauders do not 
always spare a flag of truce. There is danger — ” 

“ For that reason your leader braves it. Quick ! ” 

The knight took the banner, and rode deliberately 
up to the horsemen. On approaching, his warlike eye 
could not but admire the perfect caparison of their 
arms, the strength and beauty of their steeds, and the 
steady discipline of their long and glittering line. 

As he rode up, and his gorgeous banner gleamed in 
the noonlight, the soldiers saluted him. It was a good 
omen, and he hailed it as such. “ Fair sirs, ” said 
the knight, “ I come, at once herald and leader of the 
little band who have just escaped the unlooked-for 
assault of armed men on yonder hill ; and claiming aid, as 
knight from knight, and soldier from soldier, I place my 
troop under the protection of your leader. Suffer me to 
see him.” 

“ Sir knight, ” answered one, who seemed the captain 


188 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


of the band, “ sorry am I to detain one of your gallant 
bearing, and still more so, on recognizing the device of 
one of the most potent houses of Italy. But our orders 
are strict, and we must bring all armed men to the camp 
of our general.” 

“ Long absent from my native land, I knew not,” 
replied the knight, “ that there was war in Tuscany. 
Permit me to crave the name of the general whom you 
speak of, and that of the foe against whom ye march.” 

The captain smiled slightly. 

“ Walter de Montreal is the general of the Great Com- 
pany , and Plorence his present foe. ” 

“We have fallen, then, into friendly, if fierce hands,” 
replied the knight, after a moment’s pause. “ To Sir 
Walter de Montreal I am known of old. Permit me to 
return to my companions, and acquaint them that if 
accident has made us prisoners, it is, at least, only 
to the most skilful warrior of his day that we are con- 
demned to yield.” 

The Italian then turned his horse to join his comrades. 

“ A fair knight and a hold presence. ” said the captain 
of the Companions to his neighbor, “ though I scarce 
think it is the party we are ordered to intercept. Praised 
he the Virgin, however, his men seem from the North. 
Them, perhaps, we may hope to enlist.” 

The knight now, with his comrades, rejoined the 
troop; and, on receiving their parole not to attempt 
escape, a detachment of thirty horsemen were despatched 
to conduct the prisoners to the encampment of the Great 
Company. 

Turning from the main road, the knight found him- 
self conducted into a narrow defile between the hills, 
which, succeeded by a gloomy tract of wild forest land, 
brought the party at length into a full and abrupt 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 189 


view of a wide plain covered with the tents of what, 
for Italian warfare, was considered a mighty army. A 
stream, over which rude and hasty bridges had been 
formed from the neighboring timber, alone separated 
the horsemen from the encampment. 

“ A noble sight ! ” said the captive cavalier, with 
enthusiasm, as he reined in his steed, and gazed upon 
the wild and warlike streets of canvas traversing each 
other in vistas broad and regular. 

One of the captains of the Great Company who rode 
beside him, smiled compacently. 

“ There are few masters of the martial art who equal 
Fra Moreale, ” said he ; “ and savage, reckless, and 
gathered from all parts and all countries, — from cavern 
and from market-place, from prison and from palace, — as 
are his troops, he has reduced them already into a disci- 
pline which might shame even the soldiery of the empire. ” 

The knight made no reply; but spurring his horse 
over one of the rugged bridges, soon found himself 
amidst the encampment. But that part at which he 
entered little merited the praises bestowed upon the 
discipline of the army. A more unruly and disorderly 
array, the cavalier, accustomed to the stern regularity 
of English, French, and German discipline, thought he 
had never beheld: here and there fierce, unshaven, 
half -naked brigands might be seen, driving before them 
the cattle which they had just collected by predatory 
excursions. Sometimes a knot of dissolute women 
stood, — chattering, scolding, gesticulating, — collected 
round groups of wild, shagged Northmen, who, despite 
the bright purity of the summer-noon, were already 
engaged in deep potations. Oaths and laughter and 
drunken merriment and fierce brawl rang from side to 
side ; and ever ^nd anon some hasty conflict with drawn 


190 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


knives was begun, and finished by the fiery and savage 
bravoes of Calabria or the Apennines, before the very 
eyes and almost in the very path of the troop. Tumblers 
and mountebanks and jugglers and Jew pedlers were 
exhibiting their tricks or their wares at every interval, 
apparently well inured to the lawless and turbulent 
market in which they exercised their several callings. 
Despite the protection of the horsemen who accompanied 
them, the prisoners were not allowed to pass without 
molestation. Groups of urchins, squalid, fierce, and 
ragged, seemed to start from the ground, and surrounded 
their horses like swarms of bees, uttering the most 
discordant cries ; and, with the gestures of savages, rather 
demanding than beseeching money, which, when granted, 
seemed only to render them more insatiable. While, 
sometimes mingled with the rest, were seen the bright 
eye and olive cheek, and half-pleading, half-laughing smile 
of girls, whose extreme youth, scarce emerged from 
childhood, rendered doubly striking their utter and 
imredeemed abandonment. 

“ You did not exaggerate the decorum of the Grand 
Company ! ” cried the knight, gravely, to his new ac- 
quaintance. 

“ Signor, ” replied the other, “ you must not judge of 
the kernel by the shell. We are scarcely yet arrived 
at the camp. These are the outskirts, occupied rather 
by the rabble than the soldiers. Twenty thousand men 
from the sink, it must be owned, of every town in Italy, 
follow the camp, to fight if necessary, but rather for 
plunder and for forage, — such you now behold. Pres- 
ently you will see those of another stamp. ” 

The knight’s heart swelled high. “ And to such 
men is Italy given up! ” thought he. His reverie was 
broken by a loud burst of applause from some con- 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 191 


vivialists hard by. He turned, and under a long 
tent, and round a board covered with wine and viands, 
sat some thirty or forty bravoes. A ragged minstrel, 
or jongleur, with an immense beard and mustachios, 
was tuning, with no inconsiderable skill, a lute which 
had accompanied him in all his wanderings; and sud- 
denly changing its notes into a wild and warlike melody, 
he commenced in a loud and deep voice the following 
song : — 

THE PEAISE OF THE GRAND COMPANY. 


I. 

Ho, dark one from the golden South, 

Ho, fair one from the North ; 

Ho, coat of mail and spear of sheen, — 

Ho, wherefore ride ye forth ? 

“ We come from mount, we come from cave, 
We come across the sea. 

In long array, in bright array, 

- To Montreal’s Companie.” 

Oh the merry, merry band, 

Light heart and heavy hand, — 

Oh the Lances of the Free ! 

II. 

Ho, princes of the castled height, 

Ho, burghers of the town ; 

Apulia’s strength, Romagna’s pride. 

And Tusca’s old renown ! 

“ Why quail ye thus ? why pale ye thus 1 
What spectre do ye see ? 

The blood-red flag, and trampling march. 

Of Montreal’s Corapani^.” 

Oh the sunshine of your life, 

Oh the thunders of your strife, 

Wild Lances of the Free ! 


192 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

III. 

Ho, scutcheons o’er the vaulted tomb 
Where Norman valor sleeps, 

Why shake ye so ? why quake ye so ? 

What wind the trophy sweeps ? 

‘‘ We shake without a breath, — below, 

The (lead are stirred to see 
The Norman’s fame revived again 
In IMontreal’s Companie.” 

Since Roger won his crown. 

Who hath equalled your renown, 

Brave Lances of the Free ? 

IV 

Ho, ye who seek to win a name. 

Where deeds are bravest done ; 

Ho, ye who wish to pile a heap. 

Where gold is lightest won ; 

Ho, ye who loathe the stagnant life, 

Or shun the law’s decree, 

Belt on the brand, and spur the steed. 

To Montreal’s Companie. 

And the maid shall share her rest. 

And the miser share his chest. 

With the Lances of the Free ! 

The Free ! 

The Free ! 

Oh, the Lances of the Free ! 

Then suddenly, as if inspired to a wilder flight by 
his own minstrelsy, the jongleur, sweeping his hand 
over the chords, broke forth into an air admirably ex- 
pressive of the picture which his words, running into 
a rude but lively and stirring doggerel, attempted to 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 193 


THE MARCH OF THE GRAND COMPANY. 

Tir^, tiral^, — trumpet and drum, 

Rising bright o’er the height of the mountain they come I 
German and Hun and the Islandrie, 

Who routed the Frenchman at famed Cressi^, 

When the rose changed its hue with the fleur-de-lis ; 

With the Roman and Lombard and Piedmontese, 

And the dark-haired son of the southern seas. 

Tir^, tiral^, — more near and near 

Down the steep, — see them sweep ; rank by rank they appear I 
With the Cloud of the Crowd hanging dark at their rear — 
Serried, and steadied, and orderlie. 

Like the course, like the force, of a marching sea 1 
Open your gates, and out with your gold. 

For the blood must be spilt, or the ransom be told 1 
Woe, burghers, woe ! Behold them led 
By the stoutest arm and the wisest head. 

With the snow-white cross on the cloth of red; 

With the eagle eye, and the lion port, 

His barb for a throne, and his camp for a court; 

Sovereign and scourge of the land is he, — 

The kingly Knight of the Companie I 
Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah 1 
Hurrah for the army, hurrah for its lord, — 

Hurrah for the gold that is got by the sword, — 

Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! 

For the Lances of the Freel 

Shouted by the full chorus of those desperate boon- 
companions, and caught up and re-echoed from side to 
side, near and far, as the familiar and well-known words 
of the burden reached the ears of more distant groups or 
stragglers, the effect of this fierce and licentious min- 
strelsy was indescribable. It was impossible not to feel 
the zest which that daring life imparted to its daring 

VOL. II. — 13 


194 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


followers, and even the gallant and stately knight who 
listened to it reproved himself for an involuntary thrill of 
sympathy and pleasure. 

He turned with some impatience and irritation to his 
companion, who had taken a part in the chorus, and 
said ; “ Sir, to the ears of an Italian noble, conscious of 
the miseries of his country, this ditty is not welcome. I 
pray you, let us proceed.” 

“ I humbly crave your pardon, signor, ” said the Free 
Companion ; “ but really so attractive is the life led by 
Free Lances under Fra Moreale, that sometimes we for- 
get the — But pardon me, — we will on. ” 

A few moments more, and hounding over a narrow 
circumvallation, the party found themselves in a quarter, 
animated indeed, hut of a wholly different character of 
animation. Long lines of armed men were drawn up on 
either side of a path conducting to a large marquee 
placed upon a little hillock, surmounted by a blue flag; 
and up this path armed soldiers were passing to and fro 
with great order, hut with a pleased and complacent 
expression upon their swarthy features. Some that 
repaired to the marquee were bearing packets and 
bales upon their shoulders, — those that returned seemed 
to have got rid of their burdens, hut every now and 
then impatiently opening their hands, appeared counting 
and recounting to themselves the coins contained therein. 

The knight looked inquiringly at his companion. 

“ It is the marquee of the merchants, ” said the 
captain ; “ they have free admission to the camp, and 
their property and persons are rigidly respected. They 
purchase each soldier’s share of the plunder at fair prices, 
and either party is contented with the bargain. ” 

“ It seems, then, that there is some kind of rude jus- 
tice observed amongst you, ” said the knight. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 195 


"E-ude! Diavolo ! Not a town in Italy but would 
be glad of such even justice and such impartial laws. 
Yonder lie the tents of the judges, appointed to try 
all offences of soldier against soldier. To the right, 
the tent with the golden ball contains the treasurer of 
the army. Fra Moreale incurs no arrears with his 
soldiery. ” 

It was, indeed, by these means that the Knight of 
St. John had collected the best equipped and the best 
contented force in Italy. Every day brought him 
recruits. Nothing was spoken of amongst the mer- 
cenaries of Italy but the wealth acquired in his service, 
and every warrior in the pay of republic or of tyrant 
sighed for the lawless standard of Fra Moreale. Al- 
ready had exaggerated tales of the fortunes to be made 
in the ranks of the Great Company passed the Alps; 
and even now, the knight, penetrating farther into 
the camp, beheld from many a tent the proud banners 
and armorial blazon of German nobility and Gallic 
knighthood. 

“ You see, ” said the Free Companion, pointing to 
these insignia, “ we are not without our different ranks 
in our wild city; and while we speak, many a golden 
spur is speeding hitherward from the North ! ” 

All now in the quarter they had entered was still and 
solemn ; only afar came the mingled hum, or the sudden 
shout of the pandemonium in the rear, mellowed by dis- 
tance to a not unpleasing sound. An occasional soldier, 
crossing their path, stalked silently and stealthily to 
some neighboring tent, and seemed scarcely to regard 
their approach. 

“Behold! we are before the general’s pavilion,” said 
the Free Lance. 

Blazoned with purple and gold, the tent of Montreal 


196 RIENZr, THE LAST OR THE TRIBUNES. 

lay a little apart from the rest. A brooklet from the 
stream they had crossed murmured gratefully on the ear, 
and a tall and wide-spreading beech cast its shadow over 
the gorgeous canvas. 

While his troop waited without, the knight was 
conducted at once to the presence of the formidable 
adventurer. 


N 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 197 


CHAPTER II. 

Adrian once more the Guest of Montreal. 

Montreal was sitting at the head of a table, surrounded 
by men, some military, some civil, whom he called his 
councillors, and with whom he apparently debated all 
his projects. These men, drawn from various cities, 
were intimately acquainted with the internal affairs of 
the several states to which they belonged. They could 
tell to a fraction the force of a signor, the wealth of a 
merchant, the power of a mob. And thus, in his law- 
less camp, Montreal presided, not more as a general 
than a statesman. Such knowledge was invaluable to 
the chief of the Great Company. It enabled him to 
calculate exactly the time to attack a foe, and the sum 
to demand for a suppression of hostilities. He knew 
what parties to deal with, — where to importune, where 
to forbear. And it usually happened that by some 
secret intrigue the appearance of Montreal’s banner 
before the walls of a city was the signal for some sedi- 
tion or some broil within. It may be that he thus also 
promoted an ulterior as well as his present policy. 

The divan were in full consultation when an officer 
entered, and whispered a few words in Montreal’s ear. 
His eyes brightened. “ Admit him,” he said hastily. 
“ Messires,” he added to his councillors, rubbing his 
hands, “ I think our net has caught our bird. Let us 
see. ” 

At this moment the drapery was lifted and the knight 
admitted. 


198 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“How!” muttered Montreal, changing color and in 
evident disappointment. “ Am I to be ever thus 
balked?” 

“ Sir Walter de Montreal,” said the prisoner, “ I am 
once more your guest.' In these altered features you 
perhaps scarcely recognize Adrian di Gastello.” 

“ Pardon me, noble signor,” said Montreal, rising 
with great courtesy ; “ the mistake of my varlets dis- 
turbed my recollection for a moment, — I rejoice once 
more to press a hand that has won so many laurels since 
last we parted. Your renown has been grateful to my 
ears. Ho! ” continued the chieftain, clapping his hands, 
“ see to the refreshment and repose of this noble cavalier 
and his attendants. Lord Adrian, I will join you 
presently.” 

Adrian withdrew. Montreal, forgetful of his coun- 
cillors, traversed his tent with hasty strides; then 
summoning the officer who had admitted Adrian, he 
said, “Count Landau still keeps the pass?” 

“ Yes, general! ” 

“Hie thee fast hack, then, — the ambuscade must 
tarry till nightfall. We have trapped the wrong 
fox.” 

The officer departed, and shortly afterwards Montreal 
broke up the divan. He sought Adrian, who was lodged 
in a tent beside his own. 

“My lord,” said Montreal, “it is true that my men 
had orders to stop every one on the roads towards 
Florence. I am at war with that city. Yet I expected 
a very different prisoner from you. Need I add that 
you and your men are free ? ” 

“ I accept the courtesy, noble Montreal, as frankly as 
it is rendered. May I hope hereafter to repay it! 
Meanwhile permit me, without any disrespect, to say 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 199 


that had I learned the Grand Company was in this 
direction, I should have altered my course. I had 
heard that your arms were bent (somewhat to my 
mind more nobly) against Malatesta, the tyrant of 
Rimini ! ” 

“ They were so. He was my foe ; he is my tributary. 
We conquered him. He paid us the price of his lib- 
erty. We marched by Asciano upon Sienna. For 
sixteen thousand florins we spared that city; and we 
now hang like a thunderbolt over Florence, which 
dared to send her puny aid to the defence of Rimini. 
Our marches are forced and rapid, and our camp in this 
plain but just pitched.” 

“ I hear that the Grand Company is allied with 
Albornoz, and that its general is secretly the soldier 
of the Church. Is it so ? ” 

"Ay, Albornoz and I understand one another,” 
replied Montreal, carelessly; " and not the less so that 
we have a mutual foe, whom both are sworn to crush, 
in Visconti, the Archbishop of Milan.” 

“Visconti, the most potent of the Italian princes! 
That he has justly incurred the wrath of the Church I 
know, and I can readily understand that Innocent has 
revoked the pardon which the intrigues of the arch- 
bishop purchased from Clement VI; but I do not see 
clearly why Montreal should willingly provoke so dark 
and terrible a foe.” 

Montreal smiled sternly. “ Know you not,” he said, 
“ the vast ambition of that Visconti % By the holy 
sepulchre, he is precisely the enemy my soul leaps to 
meet ! He has a genius worthy to cope with Montreal’s. 

I have made myself master of his secret plans, — they 
are gigantic! In a word, the archbishop designs the 
conquest of all Italy. His enormous wealth purchases 


200 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


the corrupt, his dark sagacity ensnares the credulous, 
his daring valor awes the weak. Every enemy he 
humbles, every ally he enslaves. This is precisely 
the prince whose progress Walter de Montreal must 
arrest. Eor this,” he said in a whisper as to himself, 
“ is precisely the prince who, if suiFered to extend his 
power, will frustrate the plans and break the force of 
Walter de Montreal.” 

Adrian was silent, and for the first time a suspicion 
of the real nature of the Provengal’s designs crossed his 
breast. 

“But, noble Montreal,” resumed the Colonna, “give 
me, if your knowledge serves, as no doubt it does, — 
give me the latest tidings of my native city. I am a 
Roman, and Rome is ever in my thoughts.” 

“And well she may,” replied Montreal, quickly. 
“ Thou knowest that Albornoz, as legate of the pontiff, 
led the army of the Church into the papal territories. 
He took with liim Cola di Rienzi. Arrived at Monte 
Fiascone, crowds of Romans of all ranks hastened thither 
to render homage to the Tribune. The legate was for- 
gotten in the popularity of his companion. Whether 
or not Albornoz grew jealous — for he is proud as Lucifer 
— of the respect paid to the Tribune, or whether he 
feared the restoration of his power, I cannot tell; but 
he detained him in his camp, and refused to yield him 
to all the solicitations and all the deputations of the 
Romans. Artfully, however, he fulfilled one of the 
real objects of Rienzi’s release. Through his means 
he formally regained the allegiance of Rome to the 
Church, and by the attraction of his presence swelled 
his camp with Roman recruits. Marching to Viterbo, 
Rienzi distinguished himself greatly in deeds of arms 


HIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 201 


against the tyrant^ John di Vico. Nay, he fought as 
one worthy of belonging to the Grand Company. This 
increased the zeal of the Romans ; and the city disgorged 
half its inhabitants to attend the person of the hold 
Tribune. To the entreaties of these worthy citizens 
(perhaps the very men who had before shut up their 
darling in St. Angelo) the crafty legate merely replied, 
‘Arm against John di Vico; conquer the tyrants of the 
territory; re-establish the patrimony of St. Peter, and 
Rienzi shall then be proclaimed senator, and return to 
Rome.’ 

“ These words inspired the Romans with so great a 
zeal that they willingly lent their aid to the legate. 
Aquapendente, Bolzena yielded, John di Vico was 
half reduced and half terrified into submission, and 
Gabrielli, the tyrant of Agobbio, has since succumbed. 
The glory is to the cardinal, but the merit with 
Rienzi.” 

" And now 1 ” 

“ Albornoz continued to entertain the Senator-Tribune 
with great splendor and fair words, but not a word about 
restoring him to Rome. Wearied with this suspense, I 
have learned by secret intelligence that Rienzi has left 
the camp, and betaken himself with few attendants to 
Florence, where he has friends who will provide him 
with arms and money to enter Rome.” 

“Ah, then! now I guess,” said Adrian, with a half- 
smile, “ for whom I was mistaken ! ” 

Montreal blushed slightly. “Fairly conjectured!” 
said he. 

“Meanwhile, at Rome,” continued the Provencal, — 
“at Rome, your worthy house, and that of the Orsini, 
being elected to the supreme power, quarrelled among 
1 Vita di Cola di Rienzi. 


202 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


themselves, and could not keep the authority they had 
won. Francesco Baroncelli,^ a new demagogue, a 
humble imitator of Rienzi, rose upon the ruins of the 
peace broken by the nobles, obtained the title of Tri- 
bune, and carried about the very insignia used by his 
predecessor. But less wise than Rienzi, he took the 
antipapal party; and the legate was thus enabled to 
play the papal demagogue against the usurper. Baron- 
celli was a weak man, his sons committed every excess 
in mimicry of the high-born tyrants of Padua and Milan. 
Virgins violated and matrons dishonored, somewhat 
contrasted the solemn and majestic decorum of Rienzi ’s 
rule, — in fine, Baroncelli fell massacred by the *people. 

1 This Baroncelli, who has been introduced to the reader in a 
former portion of this work, is called by Matteo Villani “ a man 
of vile birth and little learning, — he had been a notary of the 
Capitol,” 

In the midst of the armed dissensions between the barons which 
followed the expulsion of liienzi, Baroncelli, contrived to make him- 
self master of the Capitol, and of what was considered an auxiliary \ 
of no common importance, — namely, the Great Bell, by whose 
alarum Rienzi had so often summoned to arms the Roman people, 
Baroncelli was crowned Tribune, clothed in a robe of gold brocade, 
and invested with the crozier-sceptre of Rienzi, At first his cruelty 
against the great took the appearance of protection to the humble ; 
but the excesses of his sons (not exaggerated in the text) and his 
own brutal but bold ferocity soon made him execrated by the 
people, to whom he owed his elevation. He had the folly to de- 
clare against the pope ; and this it ‘really was' that mainly induced 
Innocent to restore and oppose to their new demagogue the former 
and more illustrious Tribune, Baroncelli, like Rienzi, was excom- 
municated ; and in his instance, also, the curse of the Church was 
the immediate cause of his downfall. In attempting flight he was 
massacred by the mob, December, 13.53, Some, however, have 
maintained that he was slain in combat with Rienzi ; and others, 
by a confusion of dates, have made him succeed to Rienzi on the 
death, of the latter, (Matteo Villani, lib. iii. cap. 78 ; Osservaz. Stor. 
di Zefirino Re, MS, Vat. Rip. dal Bzovio, ann. 1353. N. 2.) 


■RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 203 


And now, if you ask what rules Kome, I answer, ‘It is 
the hope of Eienzi.’ ” 

“A strange man, and various fortunes. What will 
be the end of both ? ” 

" Swift murder to the first, and eternal fame to the 
last,” answered Montreal, calmly. “ Rienzi will be 
restored ; that brave phoenix will win its way through 
storm and cloud to its own funeral pyre: I foresee, I 
compassionate, I admire. And then,” added Montreal, 
“ I look beyond ! ” 

"But wherefore feel you so certain that, if restored, 
Rienzi must fall ? ” 

“ Is it not clear to every eye, save his, whom ambi- 
tion blinds? How can mortal genius, however great, 
rule that most depraved people by popular means ? The 
barons (you know their indomitable ferocity) — wedded 
to abuse and loathing every semblance to law — the 
barons, humbled for a moment, will watch their occa- 
sion, and rise. The people will again desert. Or else, 
grown wise in one respect by experience, the new sen- 
ator will see that popular favor has a loud voice, but 
a recreant arm. He will, like the barons, surround 
himself by foreign swords. A detachment from the 
Grand Company will be his courtiers; they will be his 
masters ! To pay them the people must be taxed. Then 
the idol is execrated. No Italian hand can govern these 
hardy demons of the North; they will mutiny and fall 
away. A new demagogue will lead on the people, and 
Rienzi will be the victim. Mark my prophecy!” 

" And then the ‘ beyond ’ to which you look ? ” 

" Utter prostration of Rome for new and long ages, — 
God makes not two Rienzis; or” said Montreal, 
proudly, " the infusion of a new life into the worn- 
out and diseased frame, — the foundation of a new 


204 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


dynasty. Verily, when I look around me, I believe 
that the Euler of nations designs the restoration of 
the South by the irruptions of the North, and that 
out of the old Eranc and Germanic race will be built 
up the thrones of the future world ! ” 

As Montreal thus spoke, leaning on his great war- 
sword, with his fair and heroic features, — so different, 
in their frank, bold, fearless expression, from the dark 
and wily intellect that characterizes the lineaments of 
the South, — eloquent at once with enthusiasm and 
thought, he might have seemed no unfitting repre- 
sentative of the genius of that northern chivalry of 
which he spake. And Adrian half fancied that he saw 
before him one of the old Gothic scourges of the Western 
World. 

Their conversation was here interrupted by the sound of 
a trumpet; and presently an officer, entering, announced 
the arrival of ambassadors from Florence. 

Again you must pardon me , noble Adrian said 
Montreal, “ and let me claim you as my guest at least 
for to-night. Here you may rest secure, and on part- 
ing, my men shall attend you to the frontiers of what- 
soever territory you design to visit.” 

Adrian, not sorry to see more of a man so celebrated, 
accepted the invitation. 

Left alone, he leaned his head upon his hand, and 
soon became lost in his reflections. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 205 


CHAPTER III. 

FaitMul and Ill-fated Love. — The Aspirations survive the 
Affections. 

Since that fearful hour in which Adrian Colonna had 
gazed upon the lifeless form of his adored Irene, the 
young Roman had undergone the usual vicissitudes of 
a wandering and adventurous life in those exciting 
times. His country seemed no longer dear to him. 
His very rank precluded him from the post he once 
aspired to take in restoring the liberties of Rome; and 
he felt that if ever such a revolution could be consum- 
mated, it was reserved for one in whose birth and habits 
the people could feel sympathy and kindred, and who 
could lift his hand in their behalf without becoming the 
apostate of his order and the judge of his own house. 
He had travelled through various courts, and served 
with renown in various fields. Beloved and honored 
wheresoever he fixed a temporary home, no change of 
scene had removed his melancholy, — no new ties had 
chased away the memory of the lost. In that era of 
passionate and poetical romance, which Petrarch repre- 
sented rather than created, Love had already begun to 
assume a more tender and sacred character than it had 
hitherto known; it had gradually imbibed the divine 
spirit which it derives from Christianity, and which 
associates its sorrows on earth with the visions and 
hopes of heaven. To him who relies upon immor- 
tality, fidelity to the dead is easy; because death cannot 


206 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


extinguish hope, and the soul of the mourner is already 
half in the world to come. It is an age that desponds 
of a future life, — representing death as an eternal 
separation, — in which, if men grieve awhile for the 
dead, they hasten to reconcile themselves to the living. 
For true is the old aphorism, that love exists not with- 
out hope. And all that romantic worship which the 
Hermit of Vaucluse felt or feigned for Laura found 
its temple in the desolate heart of Adrian Colonna. He 
was emphatically the lover of his time! Often, as in 
his pilgrimage from land to land, he passed the walls 
of some quiet and lonely convent, he seriously meditated 
the solemn vows, and internally resolved that the clois- 
ter should receive his maturer age. The absence of 
years had, however, in some degree restored the dimmed 
and shattered affection for his fatherland, and he desired 
once more to visit the city in which he had first be- 
held Irene. "Perhaps,” he thought, ‘'time may have 
wrought some unlooked-for change 3 and I may yet 
assist to restore my country.” 

But with this lingering patriotism no ambition was 
mingled. In that heated stage of action, in which the 
desire of power seemed to stir through every breast, 
and Italy had become the El Dorado of wealth or the 
Utopia of empire to thousands of valiant arms and 
plotting minds, there was at least one breast that felt 
the true philosophy of the Hermit. Adrian’s nature, 
though gallant and masculine, was singularly imbued 
with that elegance of temperament which recoils from 
rude contact, and to which a lettered and cultivated 
indolence is the supremest luxury. His education, his 
experience, and his intellect had placed him far in 
advance of his age , and he looked with a high contempt 
on the coarse villanies and base tricks by which Italian 


RIEN2I, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 207 


ambition sought its road to power. The rise and fall 
of Eienzi, who, whatever his failings, was at least the 
purest and most honorable of the self -raised princes of 
the age, had conspired to make him despond of the 
success of noble, as he recoiled from that of selfish 
aspirations. And the dreamy melancholy which resulted 
from his ill-starred love yet more tended to wean him 
from the stale and hackneyed pursuits of the world. 
His character was full of beauty and of poetry, — not 
the less so in that it found not a vent for its emotions 
in the actual occupation of the poet! Pent within, 
those emotions diffused themselves over all his thoughts 
and colored his whole soul. Sometimes, in the blessed 
abstraction of his visions, he pictured to himself the lot 
he might have chosen had Irene lived, and fate united 
them, — far from the turbulent and vulgar roar of Rome, 
but amidst some yet unpolluted solitude of the bright 
Italian soil. Before his eye there rose the lovely land- 
scape, — the palace by the borders of the waveless lake, 
the vineyards in the valley, the dark forests waving 
from the hill, — and that home, the resort and refuge of 
all the minstrelsy and love of Italy, brightened by the 
“ Lampeggiar delP angelico riso,”* that makes a para- 
dise in the face we love. Often, seduced by such 
dreams to complete oblivion of his loss, the young 
wanderer started from the ideal bliss, to behold around 
him the solitary waste of way, or the moonlit tents 
of war; or, worse than all, the crowds and revels of 
a foreign court. 

Whether or not such fancies now for a moment 
allured his meditations, conjured up perhaps by the 
name of Irene^s brother, which never sounded in his 
ears but to awaken ten thousand associations, the 
1 The splendor of the angel smile. — Petrakch. 


208 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


Colonna remained thoughtful and absorbed, until he 
was disturbed by his own squire, who, accompanied by 
Montreal’s servitors, ushered in his solitary but ample 
repast. Flasks of the richest Florentine wines; viands 
prepared with all the art which, alas! Italy has now 
lost; goblets and salvers of gold and silver, prodigally 
wrought with barbaric gems, — attested the princely 
luxury which reigned in the camp of the Grand Com- 
pany. But Adrian saw in all only the spoliation of 
his degraded country, and felt the splendor almost as 
an insult. His lonely meal soon concluded, he became 
impatient of the monotony of his tent; and, tempted 
by the cool air of the descending eve, sauntered care- 
lessly forth. He bent his steps by the side of the 
brooklet that curved, snakelike and sparkling, by Mon- 
treal’s tent; and finding a spot somewhat solitary and 
apart from the warlike tenements around, flung himself 
by the margin of the stream. 

The last rays of the sun quivered on the wave that 
danced musically over its stony bed; and amidst a little 
copse on the opposite bank broke the brief and momen- 
tary song of such of the bolder habitants of that purple 
air as the din of the camp had not scared from their 
green retreat. The clouds lay motionless to the west, 
in that sky so darkly and intensely blue, never seen 
but over the landscapes that a Claude or a Kosa loved 
to paint; and dim and delicious rose -hues gathered over 
the gray peaks of the distant Apennines. From afar 
floated the hum of the camp, broken by the neigh of 
returning steeds, the blast of an occasional bugle, and, 
at regular intervals, by the armed tramp of the neigh- 
boring sentry. And opposite to the left of the copse — 
upon a rising ground, matted with reeds, moss, and 
waving shrubs — were the ruins of some old Etruscan 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 209 


building, whose name had perished, whose very uses 
were unknown. 

The scene was so calm and lovely, as Adrian gazed 
upon it, that it was scarcely possible to imagine it at 
that very hour the haunt of fierce and banded robbers, 
among most of whom the very soul of man was embruted, 
and to all of whom murder or rapine made the habitual 
occupation of life. 

Still buried in his reveries, and carelessly dropping 
stones into the noisy rivulet, Adrian was aroused by the 
sound of steps. 

“ A fair spot to listen to the lute and the ballads of 
Provence,” said the voice of Montreal, as the Knight 
of St. John threw himself on the turf beside the young 
Colonna. 

“ You retain, then, your ancient love of your national 
melodies,” said Adrian. 

“ Ay, I have not yet survived all my youth,” answered 
Montreal, with a slight sigh. “ But somehow or other, 
the strains that once pleased my fancy now go too directly 
to my heart. So, though I still welcome jongleur and 
minstrel, I bid them sing their newest conceits. I 
cannot wish ever again to hear the poetry I heard when 
I was young ! ” 

“ Pardon me,” said Adrian, with great interest, “ but 
fain would I have dared, though a secret apprehension 
prevented me hitherto, — fain would I have dared to 
question you of that lovely lady with whom seven 
years ago we gazed at moonlight upon the odorous 
orange-groves and rosy waters of Terracina.” 

Montreal turned away his face; he laid his hand on 
Adrian’s arm, and murmured, in a deep and hoarse tone, 
“ I am alone now ! ” 

Adrian pressed his hand in silence. He felt no light 
VOL. II. — 14 


210 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


shock at thus learning the death of one so gentle, so 
lovely, and so ill-fated. 

“The vows of my knighthood,” continued Montreal, 
“which precluded Adeline the rights of wedlock; the 
shame of her house; the angry grief of her mother; the 
wild vicissitudes of my life, so exposed to peril; the 
loss of her son, — all preyed silently on her frame. 
She did not die (die is too harsh a word!), but she 
drooped away, and glided into heaven. Even as on a 
summer’s morn some soft dream fleets across us, growing 
less and less distinct, until it fades, as it were, into 
light, and we awaken, — so faded Adeline’s parting 
spirit, till the daylight of God broke upon it.” 

Montreal paused a moment, and then resumed: 
“ These thoughts make the boldest of us weak some- 
times, and we Provencals are foolish in these matters! 
God wot, she was very dear to me ! ” 

The knight bent down and crossed himself devoutly ; 
his lips muttered a prayer. Strange as it may seem to 
our more enlightened age, so martial a garb did morality 
then wear that this man, at whose word towns had blazed 
and torrents of blood had flowed, neither adjudged him- 
self, nor was adjudged by the majority of his contem- 
poraries, a criminal. His order, half monastic, half 
warlike, was emblematic of himself. He trampled 
upon man, yet humbled himself to God; nor had all 
his acquaintance with the refining scepticism of Italy 
shaken the sturdy and simple faith of the bold Pro- 
vencal. So far from recognizing any want of harmony 
between his calling and his creed, he held that man 
no true chevalier who was not as devout to the Cross 
as relentless with the sword. 

“ And you have no child save the one you lost ? ” 
asked Adrian, when he observed the wonted composure 
of Montreal once more returning. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 211 


“ Kone! ” said Montreal, as his brow again darkened. 

No love-begotten heir of mine will succeed to the for- 
tunes I trust yet to build. Never on earth shall I see 
upon the face of her child the likeness of Adeline! 
Yet, at Avignon I saw a hoy I would have claimed; 
for methought she must have looked her soul into his 
eyes, they were so like hers! Well, well! the Pro- 
vence tree . hath other branches; and some unborn 
nephew must be — what ? The stars have not yet 
decided! But ambition is now the only thing in the 
world left me to love.” 

“ So differently operates the same misfortune upon 
different characters,” thought the Colonna. “To me 
crowns became valueless when I could no longer dream 
of placing them on Irene’s brow!” 

The similarity of their fates, however, attracted Adrian 
strongly towards his host; and the two knights con- 
versed together with more friendship and unreserve 
than they had hitherto done. At length Montreal said, 
“ By the way, I have not inquired your destination.” 

“I am bound to Borne,” said Adrian; “and the 
intelligence I have learned from you incites me thither- 
ward yet more eagerly. If Bienzi return, I may mediate 
successfully, perchance, between the Tribune-Senator 
and the nobles; and if I find my cousin, young Stefa- 
nello, now the head of our house, more tractable than 
his sires, 1 shall not despair of conciliating the less 
powerful barons. Borne wants repose; and whoever 
governs, if he govern hut with justice, ought to be 
supported both by prince and plebeian ! ” 

Montreal listened with great attention, and then 
muttered to himself, “ No, it cannot be ! ” He mused 
a little while, shading his brow with his hand, before 
he said aloud: “To Borne you are bound. Well, we 


212 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

shall meet soon amidst its ruins. Know, by the way, 
that my object here is already won: these Florentine 
merchants have acceded to my terms ; they have purchased 
a two years’ peace, — to-morrow the camp breaks up, 
and the Grand Company march to Lombardy. There, 
if my schemes prosper, and the Venetians pay my price, 
I league the rascals (under Landau, my lieutenant) with 
the Sea-City, in defiance of the Visconti, and shall pass 
my autumn in peace amidst the pomps of Kome, ” 

“ Sir Walter de Montreal,” said Adrian, “ your frank- 
ness perhaps makes me presumptuous; but when I hear 
you talk, like a huxtering trader, of selling alike your 
friendship and your forbearance, I ask myself, ‘ Is this 
the great Knight of St John; and have men spoken of 
him fairly, when they assert the sole stain on his laurels 
to be his avarice 1 ’ ” 

Montreal bit his lip; nevertheless, he answered 
calmly; “My frankness has brought its own penance, 
Lord Adrian. However, I cannot wholly leave so 
honored a guest under an impression which I feel to 
be plausible but not just. No, brave Colonna; report 
wrongs me. I value gold, for gold is the architect of 
power! It fills the camp, it storms the city, it buys the 
market-place, it raises the palace, it founds the throne. 
I value gold, — it is the means necessary to my end I ” 

“ And that end — ” 

“ Is — no matter what,” said the knight, coldly. “ Let 
us to our tents ; the dews fall heavily, and the malaria 
floats over these houseless wastes.” 

The pair rose; yet, fascinated by the beauty of the 
hour, they lingered for a moment by the brook. The 
earliest stars shone over its crisping wavelets, and a 
delicious breeze murmured gently amidst the glossy 
herbage. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 213 


“Thus gazing,” said Montreal, softly, “we reverse 
the old Medusan fable the poets tell us of, and look and 
muse ourselves out of stone. A little while, and it was 
the sunlight that gilded the wave, — it now shines as 
brightly and glides as gayly beneath the stars; even so 
rolls the stream of time: one luminary succeeds the 
other, equally welcomed, — equally illumining, equally 
evanescent! You see, the poetry of Provence still lives 
beneath my mail ! ” 

Adrian early sought his couch; but his own thoughts 
and the sounds of loud mirth that broke from Montreal’s 
tent, where the chief feasted the captains of his band, 
a revel from which he had the delicacy to excuse the 
Poman noble, kept the Colonna long awake; and he 
had scarcely fallen into an unquiet slumber when yet 
more discordant sounds again invaded his repose. At 
the earliest dawn the wide armament was astir; the 
creaking of cordage, the tramp of men, loud orders and 
louder oaths, the slow rolling of baggage-wains, and 
the clank of the armorers, announced the removal of 
the camp, and the approaching departure of the Grand 
Company. 

Ere Adrian was yet attired, Montreal entered his tent. 

“I have appointed,” he said, “fivescore lances under 
a trusty leader, to accompany you, noble Adrian, to the 
borders of Pomagna; they wait your leisure. In 
another hour I depart; the on-guard are already in 
motion.” 

Adrian would fain have declined the proffered escort; 
but he saw that it would only offend the pride of the 
chief, who soon retired. Hastily Adrian endued his 
arms, — the air of the fresh morning, and the glad sun 
rising gorgeously from the hills, revived his wearied 
spirit. He repaired to Montreal’s tent, and found him 


2 14 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


alone, with the implements of writing before him, and 
a triumphant smile upon his countenance. 

“ Fortune showers new favors on me ! ” he said gayly. 
“ Yesterday the Florentines spared me the trouble of 
a siege; and to-day (even since I last saw you, — a few 
minutes since) puts your new Senator of Rome into my 
power. " 

“ How ! have your bands then arrested Rienzi ? ” 

“Not so, — better still! The Tribune changed his 
plan, and repaired to Perugia, where my brothers now 
abide, — sought them: they have supplied him with 
money and soldiers enough to brave the perils of the 
way, and to defy the swords of the barons. So writes 
my good brother Arimbaldo, a man of letters, whom 
the Tribune thinks rightly he has decoyed with old 
tales of Roman greatness, and mighty promises of grate- 
ful advancement. You find me hastily expressing my 
content at the arrangement. My brothers themselves 
will accompany the Senator-Tribune to the walls of the 
Capitol.” 

“ Still , I see not how this places Rien^i in your 
power. ” 

“No! His soldiers are my creatures; his comrades 
my brothers, — his creditor myself ! Let him rule 
Rome then: the time soon comes when the vice-regent 
must yield to — ” 

“ The chief of the Grand Company,” interrupted 
Adrian, with a shudder, which the bold Montreal wa.s 
too engrossed with the unconcealed excitement of his 
own thoughts to notice. “ No, Knight of Provence, 
basely have we succumbed to domestic tyrants; but 
never, I trust, will Romans be so vile as to wear the 
yoke of a foreign usurper.” 

Montreal looked hard at Adrian, and smiled sternly. 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 215 

“You mistake me,” said he; “and it will be time 
euongh for you to play the Brutus when I assume the 
Caesar. Meanwhile we are hut host and guest. Let us 
change the theme.” 

Nevertheless, this their latter conference threw a 
chill over both during the short time the knights 
remained together, and they parted with a formality 
which was ill-suited to their friendly intercourse of 
the night before. Montreal felt he had incautiously 
revealed himself; hut caution was no part of his char- 
acter, whenever he found himself at the head of an 
army and at the full tide of fortune; and at that 
moment, so confident was he of the success of his 
wildest schemes that he recked little whom he offended 
or whom alarmed. 

Slowly, with his strange and ferocious escort, Adrian 
renewed his way. Winding up a steep ascent that led 
from the plain, when he reached the summit, a curve in 
the road showed him the whole army on its march, — 
the gonfalons waving, the armor flashing in the sun, 
line after line, like a river of steel, and the whole 
plain bristling with the array of that moving war; 
while the solemn tread of the armed thousands fell 
subdued and stifled at times by martial and exulting 
music. As they swept on, Adrian descried at length 
the stately and towering form of Montreal upon a black 
charger, distinguished even at that distance from the 
rest, not more by his gorgeous armor than his lofty 
stature. So swept he on in the pride of his array, 
in the flush of his hopes, — the head of a mighty arma- 
ment, the terror of Italy, the hero that was, the mon- 
arch that might be. 





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BOOK IX. 


THE RETURN. 

Allora la sua venuta fu a Roma sentita ; Romani si apparecchi- 
avano a riceverlo con letizia . . . furo fatti archi trionfali, etc., 
etc. — Vita di Cola di Rienzi, lib. ii. cap. 17. 

Then the fame of his coming was felt at Rome ; the Romans 
made ready to receive him with gladness . . . triumphal arches 
were erected, etc., etc. — Life of Cola di Rienzi. 


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BOOK IX. 


CHAPTEE I. 

The Triumphal Entrance. 

All Rome was astir ! — from St. Angelo to the Capitol, 
windows, balconies, roofs, were crowded with animated 
thousands. Only here and there, in the sullen quarters 
of the Colonna, the Orsini, and the Savelli, reigned a 
deathlike solitude and a dreary gloom. In those forti- 
fications, rather than streets, not even the accustomed 
tread of the barbarian sentinel was heard. The gates 
closed, the casements barred, the grim silence around, 
attested the absence of the barons. They had left 
the city so soon as they had learned the certain approach 
of Rienzi. In the villages and castles of tlie Campagna, 
surrounded by their mercenaries, they awaited the hour 
when the people, weary of their idol, should welcome 
back even those ferocious Iconoclasts. 

With these exceptions, all Rome was astir. Triumphal 
arches of drapery, wrought with gold and silver, raised 
at every principal vista, were inscribed with mottoes of 
welcome and rejoicing. At frequent intervals stood 
youths and maidens, with baskets of flowers and laurels. 
High above the assembled multitudes — from the proud 
tower of Adrian, from the turrets of the Capitol, from 
the spires of the sacred buildings dedicated to apostle 


220 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


and to saint — floated banners as for a victory. Rome 
once more opened her arms to receive her Tribune! 

Mingled with the crowd — disguised by his large 
mantle, hidden by the pressure of the throng; his 
person, indeed, forgotten by most, and, in the confu- 
sion of the moment, heeded by none — stood Adrian 
Colonna ! He had not been able to conquer his interest 
for the brother of Irene. Solitary amidst his fellow- 
citizens, he stood, — the only one of the proud race of 
Colonna who witnessed the triumph of the darling of 
the people. 

“ They say he has grown large in his prison, ” said 
one of the bystanders ; “ he was lean enough when he 
came by daybreak out of the church of St. Angelo ! ” 

“ Ay, ” said another, a little man, with a shrewd, 
restless eye ; “ they say truly, — I saw him take leave 
of the legate. ” 

Every eye was turned to the last speaker; he became 
at once a personage of importance. “ Yes, ” continued 
the little man, with an elated and pompous air, “ as 
soon, d’ye see, as he had prevailed on Messere Brettone 
and Messere Arimbaldo, the brothers of Era Moreale, 
to accompany him from Perugia to Monte Eiascone, he 
went at once to the legate D’Albornoz, who was standing 
in the open air conversing with his captains. A crowd 
followed. I was one of them; and the Tribune nodded 
at me, — ay, that did he ! — and so, with his scarlet cloak 
and his scarlet cap, he faced the proud cardinal with a 
pride greater than his own. ‘Monsignore,’ said he, 
‘though you accord me neither money nor arms to 
meet the dangers of the road and brave the ambush of 
the barons, I am prepared to depart. Senator of Rome 
his Holiness hath made me; according to custom, I 
pray you. Monsignore, forthwith to confirm the rank.’ 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 221 


I would you could have seen how the proud Spaniard 
stared and blushed and frowned; but he hit his lip, 
and said little.” 

“ And confirmed Rienzi senator ? ” 

“Yes; and blessed him, and bade him depart.” 

“ Senator ! ” said a stalwart but gray-haired giant 
with folded arms ; “ I like not a title that has been 
borne by a patrician. I fear me in the new title he 
will forget the old.” 

“ Fie, Cecco del Vecchio, you were always a grum- 
bler! ” said a merchant of cloth, whose commodity the 
ceremonial had put in great request. “ Fie ! — for my 
part, I think Senator a less new-fangled title than Tribune. 
I hope there will be feasting enow, at last. Rome has 
been long dull. A bad time for trade, I warrant me ! ” 

The artisan grinned scornfully. He was one of those 
who distinguished between the middle class and the 
working, and he loathed a merchant as much as he 
did a noble. “The day wears,” said the little man; 
“ he must be here anon. The Senator’s lady and all his 
train have gone forth to meet him these two hours. ” 

Scarce were these words uttered, when the crowd to 
the right swayed restlessly; and presently a horseman 
rode rapidly through the street. “ Way there ! Keep 
back I Way, — make way for the Most Illustrious the 
Senator of Rome ! ” 

The .crowd became hushed, then murmuring, then 
hushed again. From balcony and casement stretched 
the neck of every gazer. The tramp of steeds was heard 
at a distance, — the sound of clarion and trumpet ; then, 
gleaming through the distant curve of the streets, was 
seen the wave -of the gonfalons, then the glitter of 
spears; and then from the whole multitude, as from 
one voice, arose the shout, “ He comes ! he comes ! ” 


222 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


Adrian shrunk yet more backward amongst the throng ; 
and, leaning against the wall of one of the houses, 
contemplated the approaching pageant. 

First came, six abreast, the procession of Roman 
horsemen who had gone forth to meet the Senator, 
bearing houghs of olive in their hands; each hundred 
preceded by banners, inscribed with the words, “ Liberty 
and Peace restored.” As these passed the group by 
Adrian, each ‘more popular citizen of the cavalcade was 
recognized, and received with loud shouts. By the 
garb and equipment of the horsemen, Adrian saw that 
they belonged chiefly to the traders of Rome, — a race 
who, he well knew, unless strangely altered, valued 
liberty only as a commercial speculation. “ A vain 
support these ! ” thought the Colonna ; “ what next ? ” 
On, then, came in glittering armor the German mer- 
cenaries, hired by the gold of the Brothers of Provence, 
in number two hundred and fifty, and previously in the 
pay of Malatesta of Rimini, — tall, stern, sedate, disci- 
plined, eying the crowd with a look half of barbarian 
wonder, half of insolent disdain. No shout of gratula- 
tion welcomed these sturdy strangers; it was evident 
that their aspect cast a chill over the assembly. 

“ Shame ! ” growled Cecco del Yecchio, audibly. “ Has 
the people’s friend need of the swords which guard an 
Orsini or a Malatesta ? Shame ! ” 

No voice this time silenced the huge malcontent. 

“ His only real defence against the barons, ” thought 
Adrian, “ if he pay them well ; but their number is 
not sufficient.” 

Next came two hundred fantassins, or foot-soldiers of 
Tuscany, with the corselets and arms of the heavy-armed 
soldiery, — a gallant company, and whose cheerful looks 
and familiar bearing appeared to sympathize with the 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 223 


crowd. And in truth they did so, — for they were Tus- 
cans, and therefore lovers of freedom. In them, too, 
the Komans seemed to recognize natural and legitimate 
allies, and there was a general cry of “ Vivano i bravi 
Toscani ! ” 

“ Poor defence ! ” thought the more sagacious Colonna ; 
“ the barons can awe, and the mob corrupt them. ** 

Next came a file of trumpeters and standard-bearers ; 
and now the sound of the music was drowned by shouts, 
which seemed to rise simultaneously as from every 
quarter of the city, — “ Rienzi ! Rienzi ! — Welcome, 
welcome ! — Liberty and Rienzi ! Rienzi and the Good 
Estate ! ” Flowers dropped on his path, kerchiefs and 
banners waved from every house; tears might be seen 
coursing, unheeded, down bearded cheeks; youth and 
age were kneeling together, with uplifted hands, invok- 
ing blessings on the head of the Restored. On he came, 
the Senator-Tribune, — the Phoenix to his pyre ! 

Robed in scarlet, that literally blazed with gold, his 
proud head bared in the sun, and bending to the saddle- 
bow, Rienzi passed slowly through the throng. Not in 
the flush of that hour were visible, on his glorious coun- 
tenance, the signs of disease and care; the very enlarge- 
ment of his proportions gave a greater majesty to his 
mien. Hope sparkled in his eye; triumph and empire 
sat upon his brow. The crowd could not contain them- 
selves ; they pressed forward, each upon each, anxious to 
catch the glance of his eye, to touch the hem of his robe. 
He himself was deeply affected by their joy. He halted ; 
with faltering and broken words, he attempted to address 
them. “ I am repaid, ” he said, “ repaid for all ; may 
I live to make you happy ! ” 

The crowd parted again; the Senator moved on; 
again the crowd closed in. Behind the Tribune, to their 


224 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


excited imagination, seemed to move the very goddess of 
ancient Rome. 

Upon a steed, caparisoned with cloth of gold, — in 
snow-white robes, studded with gems that flashed back 
the day, — came the beautiful and regal Nina. The 
memory of her pride, her ostentation, all forgotten in 
that moment, she was scarce less welcome, scarce less 
idolized, than her lord. And her smile all radiant with 
joy, her lip quivering with proud and elate emotion, — 
never had she seemed at once so born alike for love and 
for command; a Zenobia passing through the pomp of 
Rome, — not a captive, but a queen. 

But not upon that stately form riveted the gaze of 
Adrian ; pale, breathless, trembling, he clung to the 
walls against which he leaned. Was it a dream? Had 
the dead revived ? Or was it his own, his living Irene, 
whose soft and melancholy loveliness shone sadly by the 
side of Nina, — a star beside the moon? The pageant 
faded from his eyes, — all grew dim and dark. For a 
moment he was insensible. When he recovered, the 
crowd was hurrying along, confused and blent with the 
mighty stream that followed the procession. Through 
the moving multitude he caught the graceful form of 
Irene, again snatched by the closing standards of the pro- 
cession from his view. His blood rushed back from his 
heart through every vein. He was a man who for years 
had been in a fearful trance, and who is suddenly awak- 
ened to the light of heaven. 

One of that mighty throng remained motionless with 
Adrian. It was Cecco del Vecchio. 

“ He did not see me, ” muttered the smith to himself ; 
“ old friends are forgotten now ! Well, well, Cecco del 
Vecchio hates tyrants still, — no matter what their name, 
nor how smoothly they are disguised. He did not see 
me! Umph!” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 225 


CHAPTER n. 

The Masquerade. 

The acuter reader has already learned, without the abso- 
lute intervention of the author as narrator, the incidents 
occurring to Rienzi in the interval between his acquittal 
at Avignon and his return to Rome. As the impression 
made by Nina upon the softer and better nature of 
Albornoz died away, he naturally began to consider his 
guest — as the profound politicians of that day ever con- 
sidered men — a piece upon the great chessboard, to be 
moved, advanced, or sacrificed, as best suited the scheme 
in view. His purpose accomplished in the recovery of 
the patrimonial territory, the submission of John di 
Vico, and the fall and death of the demagogue Baron- 
celli, the cardinal deemed it far from advisable to restore 
to Rome, and with so high a dignity, the able and ambi- 
tious Rienzi. Before the daring Roman, even his own 
great spirit quailed ; and he was wholly unable to con- 
ceive or to calculate the policy that might be adopted by 
the new senator, when once more lord of Rome. With- 
out afi’ecting to detain, he therefore declined to assist in 
restoring him. And Rienzi thus saw himself within an 
easy march of Rome, without one soldier to protect him 
against the barons by the way. But heaven had decreed 
that no single man, however gifted or however powerful, 
should long counteract or master the destinies of Rienzi ; 
and perhaps in no more glittering scene of his life did he 
ever evince so dexterous and subtle an intellect as he now 
did in extricating himself from the wiles of the cardinal. 

VOL. II. — 15 


226 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


Repairing to Perugia, he had, as we have seen, procured, 
through the brothers of Montreal, men and money foi 
his return. But the Knight of St. John was greatly 
mistaken if he imagined that Rienzi was not thoroughly 
aware of the perilous and treacherous tenure of the sup- 
port he had received. His keen eye read at a glance the 
aims and the characters of the brothers of Montreal; he 
knew that while affecting to serve him, they designed 
to control, — that, made the debtor of the grasping and 
aspiring Montreal, and surrounded by the troops con- 
ducted by Montreal’s brethren, he was in the midst of a 
net which, if not broken, would soon involve fortune 
and life itself in its fatal and deadly meshes. But, con- 
fident in the resources and promptitude of his own genius, 
he yet sanguinely trusted to make those his puppets who 
dreamed that he was their own ; and with empire for the 
stake, he cared not how crafty the antagonists he was 
compelled to engage. 

Meanwhile, uniting to all his rasher and all his nobler 
qualities a profound dissimulation, he appeared to trust 
implicitly to his Provencal companions ; and his first act 
on entering the Capitol, after the triumphal procession, 
was to reward with the highest dignities in his gift 
Messere Arimbaldo and Messere Brettone de Montreal! 

High feasting was there that night in the halls of the 
Capitol; but dearer to Rienzi than all the pomp of the 
day, were the smiles of Kina. Her proud and admiring 
eyes, swimming with delicious tears, fixed upon his 
countenance, she but felt that they were reunited, and 
that the hours, however brilliantly illumined, were 
hastening to that moment when, after so desolate and 
dark an absence, they might once more be alone. 

Par other the thoughts of Adrian Colonna, as he sat 
alone in the dreary palace in the yet more dreary quarter 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 227 


of his haughty race. Irene, then, was alive: he had 
been deceived by some strange error, — she had escaped 
the devouring pestilence; and something in the pale 
sadness of her gentle features, even in that day of 
triumph, told him he was still remembered. But as 
his mind by degrees calmed itself from its first wild and 
tumultuous rapture, he could not *help asking himself 
the question whether they were not still to be divided! 
Stefanello Colonna, the grandson of the old Stephen, 
and (by the death of his sire and brother) the youthful 
head of that powerful house, had already raised his 
standard against the Senator. Fortifying himself in the 
almost impregnable fastness of Palestrina, he had assem- 
bled around him all the retainers of his family, and his 
lawless soldiery now ravaged the neighboring plains far 
and wide. 

Adrian foresaw that the lapse of a few days would 
suffice to bring the Colonna and the Senator to open 
war. Could he take part against those of his own blood ? 
The very circumstance of his love for Irene would yet 
more rob such a proceeding of all appearance of disinter- 
ested patriotism, and yet more deeply and irremediably 
stain his knightly fame, wherever the sympathy of his 
equals was enlisted with the cause of the Colonna. On 
the other hand, not only his love for the Senator’s sister, 
but his own secret inclinations and honest convictions, 
were on the side of one who alone seemed to him pos- 
sessed of the desire and the genius to repress the dis- 
orders of his fallen city. Long meditating, he feared no 
alternative was left him but in the same cruel neutrality 
to which he had been before condemned ; but he resolved 
at least to make the attempt — rendered favorable and 
dignified by his birth and reputation — to reconcile the 
contending parties. To effect this, he saw that he must 


228 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


begin with his haughty cousin. He was well aware 
that were it known that he had first obtained an inter- 
view with Rienzi, — did it appear as if he were charged 
with overtures from the Senator, — although Stefanello 
himself might be inclined to yield to his representations, 
the insolent and ferocious barons who surrounded him 
would not deign to listen to the envoy of the people’s 
chosen one; and instead of being honored as an inter- 
cessor, he should be suspected as a traitor. He deter- 
mined, then, to depart for Palestrina; but (and his 
heart beat audibly) would it not be possible first to 
obtain an interview with Irene ? It was no easy enter- 
prise, surrounded as she was ; but he resolved to adven- 
ture it. He summoned Giulio. 

“ The Senator holds a festival this evening, — think 
you that the assemblage will be numerous ? 

“ I hear, ” answered Giulio, “ that the banquet given 
to the ambassadors and signors to-day is to be followed 
to-morrow by a mask, to which all ranks are admitted. 
By Bacchus,^ if the Tribune only invited nobles, the 
smallest closet in the Capitol would suffice to receive his 
maskers. I suppose a mask has been resolved on in 
order to disguise the quality of the visitors.” 

Adrian mused a moment; and the result of his reverie 
was a determination to delay for another sun his depart- 
ure to Palestrina, — to take advantage of the nature of 
the revel and to join the masquerade. 

That species of entertainment, though unusual at that 
season of the year, had been preferred by Bienzi, partly 
and ostensibly because it was one in which all his numer- 
ous and motley supporters could be best received; but 
chiefly and secretly because it afforded himself and his 
confidential friends the occasion to mix unsuspected 
’ Still a common Homan expletive. 


229 



RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

amongst the throng, and learn more of the real antici- 
pations of the E/Omans with respect to his policy and his 
strength than could well be gathered from the enthusi- 
asm of a public spectacle. 

The following night was beautifully serene and clear. 
The better to accommodate the numerous guests, and to 
take advantage of the warm and moonlit freshness of the 
air, the open court of the Capitol, with the Place of the 
Lion (as well as the state apartments within), was de- 
voted to the festival. 

As Adrian entered the festive court with the rush of 
the throng, it chanced that in the eager impatience of 
some maskers, more vehement than the rest, his vizard 
was deranged. He hastily replaced it; hut not before 
one of the guests had recognized his countenance. 

From courtesy, Kienzi and his family remained at 
first unmasked. They stood at the head of the stairs 
to which the old Egyptian Lion gave the name. The 
lights shone over that colossal monument, — which, torn 
from its antique home, had witnessed, in its grim 
repose, the rise and lapse of countless generations, and 
the dark and stormy revolutions of avenging fate. It 
was an ill omen, often afterwards remarked, that the 
place of that state festival was the place also of the state 
executions. But at that moment, as group after group 
pressed forward to win smile and word from the cele- 
brated man whose fortunes had been the theme of 
Europe, or to bend in homage to the lustrous love- 
liness of Nina, no omen and no warning clouded the 
universal gladness. 

Behind Nina, well contented to shrink from the 
gaze of the throng, and to feel her softer beauty 
eclipsed by the dazzling and gorgeous charms of her 
brother’s wife, stood Irene. Amidst the crowd, on bet 


230 RIENZr, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


alone Adrian fixed his eyes. The years which ha 
flown over the fair brow of the girl of sixteen — then 
animated by, yet trembling beneath the first wild breath 
of love; youth in every vein, passion and childish tender- 
ness in every thought — had not marred, but they had 
changed, the character of Irene’s beauty. Her cheek, no 
longer varying with every instant, was settled into a 
delicate and thoughtful paleness; her form, more 
rounded to the proportions of Roman beauty, had as- 
sumed an air of dignified and calm repose. No longer 
did the restless eye wander in search of some imagined 
object ; no longer did the lip quiver into smiles at some 
untold hope or half-unconscious recollection. A grave 
and mournful expression gave to her face (still how 
sweet !) a gravity beyond her years. The bloom, the flush, 
the April of the heart, was gone ; but yet neither time 
nor sorrow nor blighted love had stolen from her counte- 
nance its rare and angelic softness, nor that inexpressible 
and virgin modesty of form and aspect which, contrast- 
ing the bolder beauties of Italy, had more than aught 
else distinguished to Adrian, from all other women, the 
idol of his heart. And feeding his gaze upon those 
dark deep eyes, which spoke of thought far away and 
busy with the past, Adrian felt again and again that 
he was not forgotten. Hovering near her, but sufi*er- 
ing the crowd to press one after another before him, 
he did not perceive that he had attracted the eagle eye 
of the Senator. 

In fact, as one of the maskers passed Rienzi, he 
whispered: “Beware, a Colonna is among the masks! 
Beneath the reveller’s domino has often lurked the 
assassin’s dagger. Yonder stands your foe, — mark 
him! 

These words were the first sharp and thrilling intima* 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 231 


tion of the perils into which he had rushed, that the Tri- 
bune Senator had received since his return. He changed 
color slightly; and for some minutes the courtly smile and 
ready greeting with which he had hitherto delighted 
every guest, gave way to a moody abstraction. 

“ Why stands yon strange man so mute and motion- 
less ? ” whispered he to Hina. “ He speaks to none ; 
he approaches us not, — a churl, a churl ! — he must he 
seen to.” 

“ Doubtless some German or English barbarian, ” 
answered Nina. “Let not, my lord, so slight a cloud 
dim your merriment.” 

“You are right, dearest: we have friends here; we 
are well girt. And, by my father’s ashes, I feel that I 
must accustom myself to danger. Nina, let us move on ; 
methinks we might now mix among the maskers, masked 
ourselves. ” 

The music played loud and cheerily as the Senator 
and his party mingled with the throng. But still his 
eye turned ever towards the gray domino of Adrian, 
and he perceived that it followed his steps. Approach- 
ing the private entrance of the Capitol, he for a few 
moments lost sight of his unwelcome pursuer ; but just 
as he entered, turning abruptly, Rienzi perceived him 
close at his side, — the next moment the stranger had 
vanished amidst the throng. But that moment had 
sufficed to Adrian, — he had reached Irene. “ Adrian 
Colonna, ” he whispered, “ a waits thee beside the Lion. ” 

In the absorption of his own reflections, Bienzi for- 
tunately did not notice the sudden paleness and agita- 
tion of his sister. Entered within his palace, he called 
for wine: the draught revived his spirits, — he listened 
smilingly to the sparkling remarks of Nina, and endu- 
ing his mask and disguise, said, with his wonted cheer 


232 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

fulness, ISTow for truth, — strange that in festivals it 
should only speak behind a vizard! My sweet sister, 
thou hast lost thine old smile, and I would rather see 
that than — Ha ! has Irene vanished ? ” 

“ Only, I suppose, to change her dress, my Cola, 
and mingle with the revellers,” answered Nina. “Let 
my smile atone for hers.” 

Hienzi kissed the bright brow of his wife as she 
clung fondly to his ho.som. “ Thy smile is the sun- 
light, ” said he; “hut this girl disturbs me. Methinks 
nou\ at least, she might wear a gladder aspect. ” 

“ Is there nothing of love beneath my fair sister’s 
gloom % ” answered Nina. “ Do you not call to mind 
how she loved Adrian Colonna?” 

“ Does that fantasy hold still ? ” returned Rienzi, 
musingly. “ Well, and she is fit bride for a monarch.” 

“ Yet it were an alliance that would, better than one 
with monarchs, strengthen thy power at Rome ! ” 

“ Ay, were it possible ; hut that haughty race ! — 
Perchance this very masker that so haunted our steps was 
hut her lover. I will look to this. Let us forth, my 
Nina. Am I well cloaked ? ” 

“ Excellently well ; and IV* 

“ The sun behind a cloud. ” 

“ Ah, let us not tarry long ; what hour of revel like 
that when, thy hand in mine, this head upon thy bosom, 
we forget the sorrows we have known, and even the 
triumphs we have shared?” 

Meanwhile Irene, confused and lost amidst a trans- 
port of emotion, already disguised and masked, was 
threading her way through the crowd back to the stair- 
case of the Lion. With the absence of the Senator, 
that spot had comparatively been deserted. Music and 
the dance attracted the maskers to another quarter of 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 233 

the wide space. And Irene, now approaching, beheld 
the moonlight fall over the statue, and a solitary figure 
leaning against the pedestal. She paused; the figure 
approached, and again she heard the voice of her early 
love. 

“ Oh, Irene ! recognized even in this disguise, ” said 
Adrian, seizing her trembling hand ; “ have I lived to 
gaze again upon that form, to touch this hand? Did 
not these eyes behold thee lifeless in that fearful vault 
which I shudder to recall ? By what miracle wert thou 
raised again ? By what means did Heaven spare to this 
earth one that it seemed already to have placed amongst 
its angels ? ” 

“ Was this, indeed, thy belief ? ” said Irene, falter- 
ingly, but with an accent eloquent of joy. “ Thou didst 
not then willingly desert me? Unjust that I was, I 
wronged thy noble nature, and deemed that my brother’s 
fall, my humble lineage, thy brilliant fate, had made 
thee renounce Irene.” 

“Unjust indeed! ” answered the lover. “But surely 
I saw thee amongst the dead ! — thy cloak, with the 
silver stars, — who else wore the arms of the Homan 
Tribune ? ” 

“Was it but the cloak, then, which, dropped in the 
streets, was probably assumed by some more ill-fated 
victim, — was it that sight alone that made thee so soon 
despair? Ah, Adrian,” continued Irene, tenderly but 
with reproach, “ not even when I saw ihee seemingly 
lifeless on the couch by which I had watched three days 
and nights, not even then did I despair ! ” 

“ What ! then, my vision did not deceive me I It was 
you who watched by my bed in that grim hour, whose 
love guarded, whose care preserved me ! And I, wretch 
that I was — ” 


234 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ 'Ray, ” answered Irene, “ your thought was natural. 
Heaven seemed to endow me with superhuman strength 
whilst I was necessary to thee. But judge of my dismay ! 
I left thee to seek the good friar who attended thee as 
thy leech; I returned, and found thee not. Heart-sick 
and terrified, I searched the desolate city in vain. 
Strong as I was while hope supported me, I sank be- 
neath fear; and my brother found me senseless, and 
stretched on the ground by the Church of St. Mark. ” 

“ The Church of St. Mark ! — so foretold his dream. ” 

“ He had told me he had met thee ; we searched for 
thee in vain; at length we heard that thou hadst left 
the city, and — and — I rejoiced, Adrian, but I repined.” 

For some minutes the young lovers surrendered them- 
selves to the delight of reunion, while new explanations 
called forth new transports. 

“ And now, ” murmured Irene, “ now that we have 
met — ” She paused, and her mask concealed her 
blushes. 

“ Now that we have met, ” said Adrian, filling up the 
silence, “ wouldst thou say further, ‘ that we should 
not part ’ ? Trust me, dearest, that is the hope that 
animates my heart. It was but to enjoy these brief 
bright moments with thee, that I delayed my departure 
to Palestrina. Could I but hope to bring my young 
cousin into amity with thy brother, no barrier would 
prevent our union. Willingly I forget the past, — the 
death of my unhappy kinsmen (victims, it is true, to 
their own faults) ; and, perhaps, amidst all the crowds 
that hailed his return, none more appreciated the great 
and lofty qualities of Cola di Kienzi, than did Adrian 
Colonna. ” 

“ If this be so, ” said Irene, “ let me hope the best ; 
meanwhile, it is enough of comfort and of happiness to 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 235 

know that we love each other as of old. Ah, Adrian, I 
am sadly changed; and often have I thought it a thing 
beyond my dreams, that thou shouldst see me again and 
love me still.” 

“Fairer art thou and lovelier than ever,” answered 
Adrian, passionately ; “ and time, which has ripened thy 
bloom, has but taught me more deeply to feel thy value. 
Farewell, Irene, I linger here no longer; thou wilt, I 
trust, hear soon of my success with my house, and ere 
the week he over I may return to claim thy hand in the 
face of day.” 

The lovers parted; Adrian lingered on the spot, and 
Irene hastened to bury her emotion and her raptures in 
her own chamber. 

As her form vanished, and the young Colonna slowly 
turned away, a tall mask strode abruptly towards him. 

“ Thou art a Colonna, ” it said, “ and in the power of 
the Senator. Dost thou tremble ? ” 

“ If I he a Colonna, rude masker, ” answered Adrian, 
coldly, “ thou shouldst know the old proverb, ‘ He who 
stirs the column shall rue the fall. ' ” 

The stranger laughed aloud, and then, lifting his 
mask, Adrian saw that it was the Senator who stood 
before him. 

“ My Lord Adrian di Castello, ” said Eienzi, resuming 
all his gravity, “ is it as friend or foe that you have 
honored our revels this night ? ” 

“ Senator of Rome, ” answered Adrian, with equal 
stateliness, “ I partake of no man’s hospitality hut as a 
friend. A foe, at least to you, I trust never justly to be 
esteemed. ” 

“ I would, ” rejoined Rienzi, “ that I could apply to 
myself unreservedly that most flattering speech. Are 
these friendly feelings entertained towards me as the 


236 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


governor of the Koman people, or as the brother of the 
woman who has listened to your vows ? ” 

Adrian, who when the Senator had unmasked had 
followed his example, felt at these words that his eye 
quailed beneath Kienzi’s. However, he recovered him- 
self with the wonted readiness of an Italian, and replied 
laconically, — 

“ As both. ” 

“ Both ! ” echoed Bienzi. “ Then, indeed, noble 
Adrian, you are welcome hither. And yet, methinks, 
if you conceived there was no cause for enmity between 
us, you would have wooed the sister of Cola di Bienzi in 
a guise more worthy of your birth, and, permit me to 
add, of that station which God, destiny, and my country 
have accorded unto me. You dare not, young Colonna, 
meditate dishonor to the sister of the Senator of Borne. 
High-born as you are, she is your equal. ” 

" Were I the emperor, whose simple knight I but am, 
your sister were my equal,” answered Adrian, warmly. 
“ Bienzi, I grieve that I am^ discovered to you yet. I 
had trusted that, as a mediator between the barons and 
yourself, I might first have won your confidence, and 
then claimed my reward. Know that with to-morrow’s 
dawn I depart for Palestrina, seeking to reconcile my 
young cousin to the choice of the people and the pontiff. 
Various reasons, which I need not now detail, would 
have made me wish to undertake this heraldry of peace 
without previous communication with you. But since 
we have met, intrust me with any terms of conciliation, 
and I pledge you the right hand, not of a Boman noble, 

— alas ! the prisca fides has departed from that pledge ! 

— but of a Knight of the Imperial Court, that I will 
not betray your confidence.” 

Bienzi, accustomed to read the human countenance, 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 237 


had kept his eyes intently fixed upon Adrian while he 
spoke; when the Colonna concluded, he pressed the 
proffered hand, and said, with that familiar and win- 
ning sweetness which at times was so peculiar to his 
manner, — 

“ I trust you, Adrian, from my soul. You were mine 
early friend in calmer, perchance happier years. And 
never did river reflect the stars more clearly than your 
heart then mirrored back the truth. I trust you ! ” 

While thus speaking, he had mechanically led hack 
the Colonna to the statue of the Lion; there pausing, 
he resumed, — 

“ Know that I have this morning despatched my 
delegate to your cousin Stefanello. With all due 
courtesy, I have apprised him of my return to Rome, 
and invited hither his honored presence. Forgetting 
all ancient feuds, mine own past exile, I have assured 
him here the station and dignity due to the head of 
the Colonna. All that I ask in return is obedience to 
the law. Years and reverses have abated my younger 
pride, and though I may yet preserve the sternness of 
the judge, none shall hereafter complain of the insolence 
of the Tribune.” 

“I would,” answered Adrian, " that your mission to 
Stefanello had been delayed a day ; I would fain have 
forestalled its purport. Howbeit, you increase my 
desire of departure, should I yet succeed in obtaining 
an honorable and peaceful reconciliation, it is not in 
disguise that I will woo your sister.” 

“And never did Colonna,” replied Rienzi, loftily, 
“bring to his house a maiden whose alliance more 
gratified ambition. I still see, as I have seen ever, in 
mine own projects and mine own destinies, the chart 
of the new Roman empire! ” 


238 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


"Be not too sanguine yet, brave Eienzi!” replied 
Adrian, laying his hand on the Lion of Basalt; 
" bethink thee on how many scheming brains this 
dumb image of stone hath looked down from its 
pedestal, — schemes of sand and schemers of dust. 
Thou hast enough, at present, for the employ of all 
thine energy, — not to extend thy power, but to pre- 
serve thyself. For, trust me, never stood human 
greatness on so wild and dark a precipice ! ” 

“ Thou art honest,” said the Senator; “ and these are 
the first words of doubt, and yet of sympathy, I have 
heard in Borne. But the people love me, the barons 
have fled from Borne, the pontiff approves, and the 
swords of the Northmen guard the avenues of the 
Capitol. But these are naught; in mine own honesty 
are my spear and buckler. Oh, never,” continued 
Bienzi, kindling with his enthusiasm, " never since 
the days of the old republic, did Boman dream a purer 
and a brighter aspiration than that which animates and 
supports me now. Peace restored, law established, — 
art, letters, intellect, dawning upon the night of time; 
the patricians no longer bandits of rapine, but the guard 
of order; the people, ennobled from a mob, brave to 
protect, enlightened to guide, themselves. Then, not 
by the violence of arms, but by the majesty of her moral 
power, shall the Mother of Nations claim the obedience 
of her children. Thus dreaming and thus hoping, shall 
I tremble or despond ? No, Adrian Colonna, come weal 
or woe, I abide, unshrinking and unawed, by the chances 
of my doom ! ” 

So much did the manner and the tone of the Senator 
exalt his language, that even the sober sense of Adrian 
was enchanted and subdued. He kissed the hand he 
held, and said earnestly, — 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


239 


“A doom that I will deem it my boast to share, — a 
career that it will be my glory to smooth. If I succeed 
in my present mission — ” 

You are my brother ! ” said Rienzi. 

« If I fail r’ 

“ You may equally claim that alliance. You pause, 
— you change color.” 

“ Can I desert my house ? ” 

“Young lord,” said Rienzi, loftily, “say rather can 
you desert your country? If you doubt my honesty, if 
you fear my ambition, desist from your task, — rob me 
not of a single foe. But if you believe that I have the 
will and the power to serve the state ; if you recognize, 
even in the reverses and calamities I have known and 
mastered, the protecting hand of the Saviour of Nations; 
if those reverses were but the mercies of Him who chas- 
teneth, — necessary, it may be, to correct my earlier 
daring and sharpen yet more my intellect; if, in a word, 
thou believest me one whom, whatever be his faults, 
God hath preserved for the sake of Rome, forget that 
you are a XDolonna, remember only that you are a 
Roman ! ” 

“ You have conquered me, strange and commanding 
spirit,” said Adrian, in a low voice, completely carried 
away ; “ and whatever the conduct of my kindred, I am 
yours and Rome’s. Farewell.” 


240 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTER III. 

Adrian’s Adventures at Palestrina. 

It was yet noon when Adrian beheld before him the 
lofty mountains that shelter Palestrina, the Prceneste 
of the ancient world. Back to a period before Romulus 
existed, in the earliest ages of that mysterious civiliza- 
tion which in Italy preceded the birth of Rome, could 
be traced the existence and the power of that rocky city. 
Eight dependent towns owned its sway and its wealth ; 
its position, and the strength of those mighty walls, in 
whose ruins may yet be traced the masonry of the remote 
Pelasgi, had long braved the ambition of the neighbor- 
ing Rome. From that very citadel, the Mural Crown ^ 
of the mountain, had waved the standard of Marius; and 
up the road which Adrian’s scanty troop slowly wound, 
had echoed the march of the murderous Sylla, on his 
return from the Mithridatic war. Below, where the 
city spread towards the plain, were yet seen the shat- 
tered and roofless columns of the once celebrated Temple 
of Fortune; and still the immemorial olives clustered 
gray and mournfully around the ruins. 

A more formidable hold the barons of Rome could 
not have selected; and as Adrian’s military eye scanned 
the steep ascent and the rugged walls, he felt that with 
ordinary skill it might defy for months all the power of 
the Roman Senator. Below, in the fertile valley, dis- 

1 Hence, apparently, its Greek name of Stephane. Palestrina is 
yet one of the many proofs which the vicinity of Rome affords of 
the old Greek civilization of Italy. * 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 241 


mantled cottages and trampled harvests attested the 
violence and rapine of the insurgent barons; and at 
that very moment were seen, in the old plain of the 
warlike Jlernici, troops of armed men, driving before 
them herds of sheep and cattle, collected in their law- 
less incursions. In sight of that Proeneste^ which 
had been the favorite retreat of the luxurious lords of 
Rome in its most polished day, the Age of Iron seemed 
renewed. 

The banner of the Colonna, borne by Adrian’s troop, 
obtained ready admittance at the Porta del Sole. As 
he passed up the irregular and narrow streets that 
ascended to the citadel, groups of foreign mercenaries, 
/ half -ragged, half-tawdry knots of abandoned women, 

mixed here and there with the liveries of the Colonna, 
stood loitering amidst the ruins of ancient fanes and 
palaces, or basked lazily in the sun, upon terraces, 
through which, from amidst weeds and grass, glowed 
the imperishable hues of the rich mosaics, which had 
made the pride of that lettered and graceful nobility of 
whom savage freebooters were now the heirs. 

The contrast between the past and present forcibly 
occurred to Adrian, as he passed along; and, despite 
his order, he felt as if civilization itself were enlisted 
against his house upon the side of Rienzi. 

Leaving his train in the court of the citadel, Adrian 
demanded admission to the presence of his cousin. He 
had left Stefanello a child on his departure from Rome, 
and there could therefore be but a slight and unfamiliar 
acquaintance betwixt them, despite their kindred. 

Peals of laughter came upon his ear, as he followed 
one of Stefanello’s gentlemen through a winding passage 
that led to the principal chamber. The door was thrown 
open, and Adrian found himself in a rude hall, to which 

VOL. II. — 16 


242 RIENZI, THE LAST OE THE TRIBUNES. 


some appearance of hasty state and attempted comfort 
had been given. Costly arras imperfectly clothed the 
stone walls, and the rich seats and decorated tables, 
which the growing civilization of the northern cities 
of Italy had already introduced into the palaces of 
Italian nobles, strangely contrasted the rough pave- 
ment, spread with heaps of armor negligently piled 
around. At the farther end of the apartment Adrian 
shudderingly perceived, set in due and exact order, the 
implements of torture. 

Stefanello Colonna, with two other barons, indolently 
reclined on seats drawn around a table, in the recess of 
a deep casement, from which might be still seen the 
same glorious landscape, bounded by the dim spires of 
Rome, which Hannibal and Pyrrhus had ascended that 
very citadel to survey. 

Stefanello himself, in the first bloom of youth, bore 
already on his beardless countenance those traces usually 
the work of the passions and vices of maturest manhood. 
His features were cast in the mould of the old Stephen’s ; 
in their clear, sharp, high-bred outline might be noticed 
that regular and graceful symmetry which blood, in men 
as in animals, will sometimes entail through genera- 
tions; but the features were wasted and meagre. His 
brows were knit in an eternal frown; his thin and 
bloodless lips wore that insolent contempt which seems 
so peculiarly cold and unlovely in early youth ; and the 
deep and livid hollows round his eyes spoke of habitual 
excess and premature exhaustion. By him sat (recon- 
ciled by hatred to one another) the hereditary foes of 
his race: the soft, but cunning and astute features of 
Luca di Savelli, contrasted with the broad frame and 
ferocious countenance of the Prince of the Orsini. 

The young head of the Colonna rose with some 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 243 


cordiality to receive his cousin. “ Welcome,” he said, 
“ dear Adrian; you are arrived in time to assist us with 
your well-known military skill. Think you not we 
shall stand a long siege, if the insolent plebeian dare 
adventure it. You know our friends, the Orsini and 
the Savelli ! Thanks to St. Peter, or Peter’s delegate, 
we have now happily meaner throats to cut than those 
of each other ! ” 

Thus saying, Stefanello again threw himself list- 
lessly on his seat, and the shrill woman’s voice of 
Savelli took part in the dialogue. 

“I would, noble signor, that you had come a few 
hours earlier: we are still making merry at the recol- 
lection, — he, he, he ! ” 

“ Ah, excellent,” cried Stefanello, joining in the 
laugh; “our cousin has had a loss. Know, Adrian, 
that this base fellow, whom the pope has had the 
impudence to create Senator, dared but yesterday to 
send us a varlet, whom he called — by our Lady ! — his 
ambassador ! ” 

“ Would you could have seen his mantle. Signor 
Adrian! ” chimed in the Savelli: “purple velvet, as I 
live, decorated in gold, with the arms of E-ome; we 
soon spoiled his finery.” 

“ What! ” exclaimed Adrian, “ you did not break the 
laws of all nobility and knighthood ? — you offered no 
insult to a herald ! ” 

“Herald, sayst thou?” cried Stefanello, frowning 
till his eyes were scarce visible. “ It is for princes and 
barons alone to employ heralds. An I had had my 
will, I would have sent back the minion’s head to the 
usurper. ” 

“ What did ye, then? ” asked Adrian, coldly. 

“ Bade our swineherds dip the fellow in the ditch. 


244 EIENZr, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

and gave him a night’s lodging in a dungeon to dry 
himself withal.” 

“ And this morning, — he, he, he! ” added the Savelli, 
— “ we had him before us, and drew his teeth, one by one : 
I would you could have heard the fellow mumble out 
for mercy ! ” 

Adrian rose hastily, and struck the table fiercely with 
his gauntlet. 

** Stefanello Colonna,” said he, coloring with noble 
rage , “ answer me : did you dare to inflict this indelible 
disgrace upon the name we jointly bear? Tell me, at 
least, that you protested against this foul treason to all 
the laws of civilization and of honor. You answer not. 
House of the Colonna, can such be thy representative! ” 

"To me these words!” said Stefanello, trembling 
with passion. " Beware ! Methinks thou art the traitor, 
leagued perhaps with yon rascal mob. Well do I 
remember that thou, the betrothed of the demagogue’s 
sister, didst not join with my uncle and my father of 
old, but didst basely leave the city to her plebeian 
tyrant. ” 

"That did he!” said the fierce Orsini, approaching 
Adrian menacingly, while the gentle cowardice of 
Savelli sought in vain to pluck him back by the 
mantle, — "that did he! and but for thy presence, 
Stefanello — ” 

" Coward and blusterer ! ” interrupted Adrian , fairly 
beside himself with indignation and shame, and dashing 
his gauntlet in the very face of the advancing Orsini, 
" wouldst thou threaten one who has maintained in 
every list of Europe, and against the stoutest chivalry 
of the North, the honor of Kome, which thy deeds the 
while disgraced? By this gage, I spit upon and defy 
thee. With lance and with brand, on horse and on 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 245 

foot, I maintain against thee and all thy line, that 
thou art no knight to have thus maltreated, in thy 
stronghold, a peaceful and unharmed herald. Yes, 
even here, on the spot of thy disgrace, I challenge 
thee to arms ! ” 

“To the court below! Follow me,” said Orsini, 
sullenly, and striding towards the threshold. “ What, 
ho there ! my helmet and breastplate ! ” 

“ Stay, noble Orsini said Stefanello. “ The insult 
offered to thee is my quarrel; mine was the deed, and 
against me speaks this degenerate scion of our line. 
Adrian di Gastello, — sometime called Colonna, — 
surrender your sword: you are my prisoner! ” 

“Oh,” said Adrian, grinding his teeth, “that my 
ancestral blood did not flow through thy veins, else — 
But enough! Me, your equal, and the favored Knight 
of the Emperor, whose advent now brightens the fron- 
tiers of Italy! — me — you dare not detain. For your 
friends, I shall meet them yet perhaps, ere many days 
are over, where none shall separate our swords. Till 
then, remember, Orsini, that it is against no unprac- 
tised arm that thou wilt have to redeem thine honor! ” 

, Adrian, his drawn sword in his hand, strode towards 
the door, and passed the Orsini, who stood, lowering 
and irresolute, in the centre of the apartment. 

Savelli whispered Stefanello: “ He says, ‘ Ere many 
days be past!’ Be sure, dear signor, that he goes to 
join Rienzi. Remember, the alliance he once sought 
with the Tribune’s sister may be renewed. Beware of 
him! Ought he to leave the castle? The name of a 
Colonna, associated with the mob, would distract and 
divide half our strength.” 

“ Fear me not,” returned Stefanello, with a malig- 
nant smile. “ Ere you spoke, I had determined! ” 


246 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

The young Colonna lifted the arras from the wall, 
opened a door, and passed into a low hall, in which sat 
twenty mercenaries. 

“ Quick ! ” said he. “ Seize and disarm yon stranger 
in the green mantle, but slay him not. Bid the 
guard below find dungeons for his train. Quick! ere 
he reach the gate.” 

Adrian had gained the open hall below, — his train 
and his steed were in sight in the court, — when sud- 
denly the soldiery of the Colonna, rushing through 
another passage than that which he had passed, sur- 
rounded and intercepted his retreat. 

“ Yield thee, Adrian di Gastello,” cried Stefanello 
from the summit of the stairs; “or your blood be on 
your own head.” 

Three steps did Adrian make through the press, and 
three of his enemies fell beneath his sword. “ To the 
rescue! ” he shouted to his band, and already those bold 
and daring troopers had gained the hall. Presently the 
alarum bell tolled loud, — the court swarmed with sol- 
diers. Oppressed by numbers, beat down rather than 
subdued, Adrian’s little train was soon secured; and 
the flower of the Colonna, wounded, breathless, dis- 
armed, but still uttering loud defiance, was a prisoner 
in the fortress of his kinsman. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 247 


CHAPTER IV. 

The Position of the Senator. — The Work of Years, — The Reward 
of Ambition, 

The indignation of Rienzi may readily be conceived on 
the return of his herald mutilated and dishonored. His 
temper, so naturally stern, was rendered yet more hard 
by the remembrance of his wrongs and trials; and the 
result which attended his overtures of conciliation to 
Stefanello Colonna stung him to the soul. 

The bell of the Capitol tolled to arms within ten 
minutes after the return of the herald. The great 
gonfalon of Rome was unfurled on the highest tower; 
and the ver}^ evening after Adrian’s arrest, the forces 
of the Senator, headed by Rienzi in person, were on the 
road to Palestrina. The troopers of the barons had, 
however, made incursions as far as Tivoli with the 
supposed connivance of the inhabitants; and Rienzi 
halted at that beautiful spot to raise recruits, and 
receive the allegiance of the suspected, while his sol- 
diers, with Arimbaldo and Brettone at their head, 
went in search of the marauders. The brothers of 
Montreal returned late at night with the intelligence 
that the troopers of the barons had secured themselves 
amidst the recesses of the wood of Pantano. 

The red spot mounted to Rienzi ’s brow. He gazed 
hard at Brettone, who stated the news to him, and a 
natural suspicion shot across his mind. 

“ How ! — escaped ! ” he said. “ Is it possible ? 
Enough of such idle skirmishes with these lordly rob* 


248 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


bers! Will the hour ever come when I shall meet 
them hand to hand? Brettone,” and the brother of 
Montreal felt the dark eye of Bienzi pierce to his very 
heart, — “ Brettone! ” said he, with an abrupt change of 
voice, “ are your men to be trusted ? Is there no 
connivance with the barons ? ” 

“How!” said Brettone, sullenly, but somewhat 
confused. 

“ How me no hows ! ” quoth the Tribune-Senator, 
fiercely. “ I know that thou art a valiant captain of 
valiant men. Thou and thy brother Arimbaldo have 
served me well, and I have rewarded ye well ! Have 
I not? Speak!” 

“ Senator,” answered Arimbaldo, taking up the word, 
“ you have kept your word to us. You have raised us 
to the highest rank your power could bestow, and this 
has amply atoned our humble services.” 

“ I am glad ye allow thus much,” said the Tribune. 

Arimbaldo proceeded, somewhat more loftily, “I 
trust, my lord, you do not doubt us? ” 

“Arimbaldo,” replied Bienzi, in a voice of deep but 
half -suppressed emotion, “you are a lettered man, and 
you have seemed to share my projects for the regenera- 
tion of our common kind. You ought not to betray me. 
There is something in unison between us. But chide 
me not, I am surrounded by treason, and the very air I 
breathe seems poison to my lips.” 

There was a pathos mingled with Bienzi ’s words 
which touched the milder brother of Montreal. He 
bowed in silence. Bienzi surveyed him wistfully, and 
sighed. Then, changing the conversation, he spoke of 
their intended siege of Palestrina, and shortly after- 
wards retired to rest. 

Left alone, the brothers regarded each other for some 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 249 


moments in silence. “ Brettone,” said Arimbaldo at 
length, in a whispered voice, “my heart misgives me. 
I like not Walter’s ambitious schemes. With our own 
countrymen we are frank and loyal; why play the traitor 
with this high-souled Boman ? ” ^ 

“Tush!” said Brettone. “Our brother’s hand of 
iron alone can sway this turbulent people; and if 
Bienzi be betrayed, so also are his enemies, the 
barons. No more of this! I have tidings from Mon- 
treal; he will be in Borne in a few days.” 

“ And then ? ” 

“Bienzi weakened by the barons (for he must not 
conquer), the barons weakened by Bienzi, our North- 
men seize the Capitol; and the soldiery, now scattered 
throughout Italy, will fly to the standard of the Great 
Captain. Montreal must be first Podesta, then King 
of Borne.” 

Arimbaldo moved restlessly in his seat, and the 
brethren conferred no more on their projects. 

The situation of Bienzi was precisely that which 
tends the most to sour and to harden the fairest nature. 
With an intellect capable of the grandest designs, a 
heart that beat with the loftiest emotions, elevated to 
the sunny pinnacle of power, and surrounded by loud- 
tongued adulators, he knew not among men a single 
breast in which he could confide. He was as one on 
a steep ascent, whose footing crumbles, while every 
bough at which he grasps seems to rot at his touch. 
He found the people more than ever eloquent in his 

1 The anonymous biographer of Rienzi makes the following just 
remark: “ Sono li Tedeschi, come discendon de la Alemagna, 
semplici, puri, senza fraude, come si allocano tra ’taliani, diventano 
mastri coduti, viziosi, che sentono ogni malizia.” — Vita di Cola di 
Rlenzl, lib. ii. cap. 16. 


250 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


favor; but while they shouted raptures as he passed, not 
a man was capable of making a sacrifice for him ! 
The liberty of a state is never achieved by a single 
individual; if not the people, if not the greater 
number, a zealous and fervent minority, at least, 
must go hand in hand with him. Kome demanded 
sacrifices in all who sought the Roman regeneration, — 
sacrifices of time, ease, and money. The crowd fol- 
lowed the procession of the Senator, but not a single 
Roman devoted his life, unpaid^ to his standard; not 
a single coin was subscribed in the defence of freedom. 
Against him were arrayed the most powerful and the 
most ferocious barons of Italy; each of whom could 
maintain, at his own cost, a little army of practised 
warriors. With Rienzi were traders and artificers, who 
were willing to enjoy the fruits of liberty, but not to 
labor at the soil ; who demanded, in return for empty 
shouts, peace and riches; and who expected that one 
man was to effect in a day what would be cheaply pur- 
chased by the struggle of a generation. All their dark 
and rude notion of a reformed state was to live unbutch- 
ered by the barons and untaxed by their governors. 
Rome, I say, gave to her Senator not a free arm, nor a 
voluntary florin.^ Well aware of the danger which 
surrounds the ruler who defends his state by foreign 
swords, the fondest wish and the most visionary dream 
of Rienzi was to revive amongst the Romans, in their 
first enthusiasm at his return, an organized and vol- 
untary force^ who in protecting him would protect 
themselves; not, as before, in his first power, a nominal 
force of twenty thousand men, who at any hour might 
yield (as they did yield) to one hundred and fifty, but 
a regular, well-disciplined, and trusty body, numerous 
^ This plain fact is thoroughly borne out by every authority. 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TEIBUNES. 25 1 


enough to resist aggression, not numerous enough to 
become themselves the aggressors. 

Hitherto all his private endeavors, his public exhor- 
tations, had failed; the crowd listened, shouted, saw 
him quit the city to meet their tyrants, and returned 
to their shops, saying to each other, “ What a great 
man ! ” 

The character of Eienzi has chiefly received for its 
judges men of the closet, who speculate upon human 
beings as if they were machines; who gauge the great, 
not by their merit, hut their success; and who have 
censured or sneered at the Tribune, where they should 
have condemned the People! Had hut one half the 
spirit been found in Pome which ran through a single 
vein of Cola di Eienzi, the august Eepuhlic, if not the 
majestic empire, of Eome, might be existing now! 
Turning from the people, the Senator saw his rude and 
savage troops, accustomed to the license of a tyrant’s 
camp, and under commanders in whom it was ruin really 
to confide, — whom it was equal ruin openly to distrust. 
Hemmed in on every side by dangers, his character 
daily grew more restless, vigilant, and stern; and still, 
with all the aims of the patriot, he felt all the curses 
of the tyrant. Without the rough and hardened career 
which through a life of warfare had brought Cromwell 
to a similar power, with more of grace and intellectual 
softness in his composition, he resembled that yet 
greater man in some points of character, — in his reli- 
gious enthusiasm; his rigid justice, often forced* by 
circumstance into severity, hut never wantonly cruel 
or bloodthirsty; in his singular pride of country, and 
his mysterious command over the minds of others. But 
he resembled the giant Englishman far more in cir- 
cumstance than original nature, and that circumstance 


252 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


assimilated their characters at close of their several 
careers. Like Cromwell, beset by secret or open foes, 
the assassin’s dagger ever gleamed before his eyes; and 
his stout heart, unawed by real, trembled at imagined, 
terrors. The countenance changing suddenly from red 
to white; the bloodshot, restless eye, belying the com- 
posed majesty of mien; the muttering lips; the broken 
slumber; the secret corselet, — these to both were the 
rewards of Power! 

The elasticity of youth had left the Tribune! His 
frame, which had endured so many shocks, had con- 
tracted a painful disease in the dungeon at Avignon ; ^ 
his high soul still supported him, but the nerves 
gave way. Tears came readily into his eyes; and often, 
like Cromwell, he was thought to weep from hypocrisy, 
when in truth it was the hysteric of over-wrought and 
irritable emotion. In all his former life singularly 
temperate,^ he now fled from his goading thoughts to 
the beguiling excitement of wine. He drank deep, 
though its efi’ects were never visible upon him except 
in a freer and wilder mood, and the indulgence of 
that racy humor, half mirthful, half bitter, for which 
his younger day had been distinguished. Now the 
mirth had more loudness, but the bitterness more gall. 

Such were the characteristics of Bienzi at his return 
to power, — • made more apparent with every day. Nina 
he still loved with the same tenderness, and, if possible, 
she adored him more than ever; but, the zest and fresh- 

1 “ Dicea che ne laprigione era state ascarmato.” — Vita di Cola 
di Rienzi, lib ii. cap. 18 

2 “ Solea prima esser sobrio, temperato, astinente, ora b diven- 
tato distemperatissimo bevitore,” etc — Ibid (At first he used to 
be sober, temperate, abstinent ; now he is become a most intem- 
perate drinker, etc.) 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 253 


ness of triumphant ambition gone, somehow or other 
their intercourse together had not its old charm. For- 
merly they talked constantly of the future^ — of the 
bright days in store for them. Now, with a sharp and 
uneasy pang, Eienzi turned from all thought of that 
“ gay to-morrow.’’ There was no “ gay to-morrow ” for 
him! Dark and thorny as was the present hour, all 
beyond seemed yet less cheering and more ominous. 
Still he had some moments, brief but brilliant, when, 
forgetting the iron race amongst whom he was thrown, 
he plunged into the scholastic reveries of the worshipped 
past, and half fancied that he was of a people worthy of 
his genius and his devotion. Like most men who have 
been preserved through great dangers, he continued with 
increasing fondness to nourish a credulous belief in the 
grandeur of his own destiny. He could not imagine 
that he had been so delivered, and for no end! He was 
the Elected, and therefore the Instrument of Heaven. 
And thus that Bible which in his loneliness, his wan- 
derings, and his prison had been his solace and support, 
was more than ever needed in his greatness. 

It was another cause of sorrow and chagrin to one who 
amidst such circumstances of public danger required so 
peculiarly the support and sympathy of private friends, 
that he found he had incurred amongst his old coadju- 
tors the common penalty of absence. A few were dead ; 
others wearied with the storms of public life, and chilled 
in their ardor by the turbulent revolutions to which, in 
every effort for her amelioration, Rome had been sub- 
jected, had retired, — some altogether from the city, 
some from all participation in political affairs. In his 
halls the Tribune-Senator was surrounded by unfamiliar 
faces and a new generation. Of the heads of the popu- 
lar party, most were animated by a stern dislike to the 


254 RIEJTZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

pontifical domination, and looked with suspicion and 
repugnance upon one who, if he governed for the people, 
had been trusted and honored by the pope. Bienzi was 
not a man to forget former friends, however lowly, and 
had already found time to seek an interview with 
Cecco del Vecchio *, but that stern republican had received 
him with coldness. His foreign mercenaries and his 
title of Senator were things that the artisan could not 
digest. With his usual hluntness, he had said so to 
Rienzi. 

“ As for the last, ” answered the Tribune, affably, 
“ names do not alter natures. "When I forget that to 
be delegate to the pontiff is to he the guardian of his 
flock, forsake me. As for the first, let me hut see five 
hundred Romans sworn to stand armed day and night 
for the defence of Rome, and I dismiss the Northmen. ” 

Cecco del Vecchio was unsoftened; honest but unedu- 
cated, impracticable, and by nature a malcontent, he 
felt as if he were no longer necessary to the Senator, and 
this offended his pride. Strange as it may seem, the 
sullen artisan bore, too, a secret grudge against Rienzi 
for not having seen and selected him from a crowd of 
thousands on the day of his triumphal entry. Such are 
the small offences which produce deep danger to the 
great! 

The artisans still held their meetings, and Cecco del 
Vecchio’s voice was heard loud in grumbling forebodings. 
But what wounded Rienzi yet more than the alienation 
of the rest, was the confused and altered manner of his 
old friend and familiar, Pandulfo di Guido. Missing 
that popular citizen among those who daily offered their 
homage at the Capitol, he had sent for him, and souglit 
in vain to revive their ancient intimacy. Pandulfo 
affected great respect; but not all the condescension of 


RIENZI, THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. 255 


the Senator could conquer his distance and his restraint. 
In fact, Pandulfo had learned to form ambitious projects 
of his own; and hut for the return of Eienzi, Pandulfo 
di Guido felt that he might now, with greater safety, 
and indeed with some connivance from the barons, have 
been the Tribune of the people. The facility to rise into 
popular eminence which a disordered and corrupt state, 
unblest by a regular constitution, offers to ambition, breeds 
the jealousy and the rivalship which destroy union, and 
rot away the ties of party. 

Such was the situation of Eienzi, and yet, wonderful 
to say, he seemed to be adored by the multitude; and 
law and liberty, life and death, were in his hands! 

Of all those who attended his person, Angelo Villani 
was the most favored; that youth, who had accompanied 
Eienzi in his long exile, had also, at the wish of Nina, 
attended him from Avignon, through his sojourn in the 
camp of Albornoz. HiS' zeal, intelligence, and frank and 
evident affection blinded the Senator to the faults of his 
character, and established him more and more in the 
gratitude of Eienzi. He loved to feel that one faithful 
heart beat near him ; and the page, raised to the rank of 
his chamberlain, always attended his person, and slept in 
his antechamber. 

Eetiring that night, at Tivoli, to the apartment pre- 
pared for him, the Senator sat down by the open case- 
ment, through which were seen, waving in the starlight, 
the dark pines that crowned the hills, while the still- 
ness of the hour gave to his ear the dash of the water- 
falls heard above the regular and measured tread of the 
sentinels below. Leaning his cheek upon his hand, 
Eienzi long surrendered himself to gloomy thought ; and 
when he looked up, he saw the bright blue eye of Villani 
fixed in anxious sympathy on his countenance. 


256 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ Is my lord unwell ? ” asked the young chamberlain, 
hesitating. 

“Not so, my Angelo; but somewhat sick at heart., 
Methinks, for a September night the air is chill! 

“ Angelo, ” resumed Rienzi, who had already acquired 
that uneasy curiosity which belongs to an uncertain 
power, — “ Angelo, bring me hither yon writing imple- 
ments ; hast thou heard aught what the men say of our 
probable success against Palestrina ? ” 

“ Would my lord wish to learn all their gossip, whether 
it please or not ? ” answered Villani. 

“ If I studied only to hear what pleased me, Angelo, 
I should never have returned to Rome.” 

“ Why, then, I heard a constable of the Northmen 
say, meaningly, that the place will not be carried.” 

“ Humph 1 And what said the captains of my Roman 
Legion ? ” 

“ My lord, I have heard it whispered that they fear 
defeat less than they do the revenge of the barons, if 
they are successful.” 

“ And with such tools the living race of Europe and 
misjudging posterity will deem that the workman is to 
shape out the Ideal and the Perfect! Bring me yon 
Bible.” 

As Angelo reverently brought to Rienzi .the sacred 
book, he said, — 

“ Just before I left my companions below, there was 
a rumor that the Lord Adrian Colonna had been im- 
prisoned by his kinsman.” 

“ I too heard, and I believe, as much, ” returned 
Rienzi ; “ these barons would gibbet their own children 
in irons, if there were any chance of the shackles growing 
rusty for want of prey. But the wicked shall be brought 
low, and their strong places shall be made desolate. ” 




RIENZl, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 257 

" I would, my lord/’ said Villani, “ that our Korth- 
men had other captains than these Provencals.” 

“ Why 1 ” asked Kienzi, abruptly. 

Have the creatures of the Captain of the Grand 
Company ever held faith with any man whom it suited 
the avarice or the ambition of Montreal to betray? Was 
he not, a few months ago, the right arm of John di 
Vico, and did he not sell his services to John di Vico’s 
enemy, the Cardinal Albornoz? These warriors barter 
men as cattle. ” 

“Thou describest Montreal rightly; a dangerous and 
an awful man. But methinks his brothers are of a duller 
and meaner kind; they dare not the crimes of the Bob- 
ber Captain. Howbeit, Angelo, thou hast touched a 
string that will make discord with sleep to-night. Fair 
youth, thy young eyes have need of slumber; withdraw, 
and when thou hearest men envy Bienzi, think that — ” 

“ God never made genius to he envied ! ” interrupted 
Villani, with an energy that overcame his respect. “ We 
envy not the sun, but rather the valleys that ripen be- 
neath his beams.” 

“Verily, if I be the sun,” said Bienzi, with a bitter 
and melancholy smile, “ I long for night, — and come it 
will, to the human as to the celestial pilgrim! Thank 
Heaven, at least, that our ambition cannot make us 
immortal 1 ” 


VOL U. — 17 


258 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTER V. 

The Biter Bit. 

The next morning, when Rienzi descended to the room 
where his captains awaited him, his quick eye perceived 
that a cloud still lowered upon the brow of Messere 
Brettone. Arimbaldo, sheltered by the recess of the 
rude casement, shunned his eye. 

“A fair morning, gentles,” said Rienzi; “the sun 
laughs upon our enterprise. I have messengers from 
Rome betimes, — fresh troops will join us ere noon.” 

“ I am glad, Senator,” answered Brettone, “ that you 
have tidings which will counteract the ill of those I 
have to narrate to thea The soldiers murmur loudly, 
— their pay is due to them; and I fear me that with- 
out money they will not march to Palestrina.” 

“ As they will,” returned Rienzi, carelessly. “ It is 
but a few days since they entered Rome ; pay did they 
receive in advance, — if they demand more, the Colonna 
and Orsini may outbid me. Draw off your soldiers, sir 
knight, and farewell.” 

Brettone’s countenance fell, — it was his object to get 
Rienzi more and more in his power, and he wished not 
to suffer him to gain that strength which wouio accrue 
to him from the fall of Palestrina: the indifference of 
the Senator foiled and entrapped him in his own net. 

“ That must not be,” said the brother of Montreal, 
after a confused silence; “ we cannot leave you thus to 
your enemies. The soldiers, it is true, demand pay — ” 


illENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 259 

" And should have it,” said Rienzi. “ I know these 
mercenaries, — it is ever with them mutiny or money. 
I will throw myself on my Romans, and triumph , — or 
fall, if so Heaven decrees, with them. Acquaint your 
constables with my resolve.” 

Scarce were these words spoken, ere, as previously 
concerted with Brettone, the chief constable of the 
mercenaries appeared at the door. “ Senator,” said he, 
with a rough semblance of respect, " your orders to march 
have reached me. I have sought to marshal my men; 
hut — ” 

“ I know what thou wouldst say, friend,” interrupted 
Rienzi, waving his hand; “ Messere Brettone will give 
you my reply. Another time, sir captain, more cere- 
mony with the Senator of Rome. You may withdraw.” 

The unforeseen dignity of Rienzi rebuked and abashed 
the constable; he looked at Brettone, who motioned him 
to depart. He closed tke door and withdrew. 

“ What is io be done 1 ” said Brettone. 

“ Sir knight,” replied Rienzi, gravely, “ let us under- 
stand each other. Would you serve me or not? If the 
first, you are not my equal, hut subordinate, — and you 
must obey and not dictate; if the last, my debt to you 
shall be discharged, and the world is wide enough for 
both.” 

“We have declared allegiance to you,” answered 
Brettone; “and it shall be given.” 

“ One caution before I re-accept your fealty,” replied 
Rienzi, very slowly. “ For an open foe, I have my 
sword; for a traitor, mark me, Rome has the axe: of 
the first I have no fear; for the last, no mercy.” 

“ These are not words that should pass between 
friends,” said Brettone, turning pale with suppressed 
emotion. 


260 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“Friends! ye are my friends, then! — your hands! 
Friends, so ye are! — and shall prove it ! Dear Arim- 
haldo, thou, like myself, art book-learned, — a clerkly 
soldier. Dost thou remember how in the Homan his- 
tory it is told that the treasury lacked money for the 
soldiers? The consul convened the nobles. ‘ Ye,’ said 
he, ‘ that have the offices and dignity should be the first 
to pay for them.’ Ye heed me, my friends; the nobles 
took the hint, they found the money, — the army was 
paid. This example is not lost on you. I have made 
you the leaders of my force. Home hath showered her 
honors on you. Your generosity shall commence the 
example which the Homans shall thus learn of strangers. 
Ye gaze at me, my friends ! I read your noble souls, 
and thank ye beforehand. Ye have the dignity and 
the office; ye have also the wealth! — pay the hirelings, 
pay them ! ” ^ 

Had a thunderbolt fallen at the feet of Brettone, he 
could not have been more astounded than at this simple 
suggestion of Hienzi’s. He lifted his eyes to the Sen- 
ator's face, and saw there that smile which he had 
already, bold as he was, learned to dread. He felt 
himself flMy sunk in the pit he had digged for another. 
There was that in the Senator-Tribune’s brow that told 
him to refuse was to declare open war, and the moment 
was not ripe for that. 

“ Ye accede,” said Hienzi ; “ ye have done well.” 

The Senator clapped his hands ; his guard appeared. 

“ Summon the head constables of the soldiery. ” 

The brothers still remained dumb. 

The constables entered. 

“ My friends,” said Hienzi, “ Messere Brettone and 
Messere Arimbaldo have my directions to divide amongst 
^ See the anonymous biographer, lib. ii. cap. 19. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 261 


your force a thousand florins. This evening we encamp 
beneath Palestrina.” 

The constables withdrew in visible surprise. Rienzi 
gazed a moment on the brothers, chuckling within him- 
self, — for his sarcastic humor enjoyed his triumph. 
“ You lament not your devotion, my friends ! ” 

“ No,” said Brettone, rousing himself, “ the sum but 
trivially swells our debt.” 

“ Frankly said, — your hands once more ! The good 
people of Tivoli expect me in the Piazza, — they require 
some admonitions. Adieu till noon.” 

When the door closed on Rienzi, Brettone struck the 
handle of his sword fiercely. “ The Roman laughs at 
us,” said he; “ but let Walter de Montreal once appear 
in Rome, and the proud jester shall pay us dearly for 
this. ” 

" Hush! ” said Arimhaldo, “ walls have ears, and that 
imp of Satan, young Villani, seems to me ever at our 
heels! ” 

“ A thousand florins! I trust his heart hath as many 
drops,” growled the chafed Brettone, unheeding his 
brother. 

The soldiers were paid, the army maroked; the 
eloquence of the Senator had augmented his force by 
volunteers from Tivoli, and wild and half-armed peas- 
antry joined his standard from the Campagna and the 
neighboring mountains. 

Palestrina was besieged; Rienzi continued dexter- 
ously to watch the brothers of Montreal. Under pre- 
text of imparting to the Italian volunteers the advantage 
of their military science, he separated them from their 
mercenaries, and assigned to them the command of the 
less disciplined Italians, with whom, he believed, they 
could not venture to tamper. He himself assumed the 


262 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


lead of the Northmen; and, despite themselves, they 
were fascinated by his artful yet dignified affability, 
and the personal courage he displayed in some sallies of 
the besieged barons. But as the huntsmen upon all the 
subtlest windings of their prey, so pressed the relent- 
less and speeding Fates upon Cola di Kienzi I 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 263 


CHAPTER VT. 

The Events gather to the End. 

While this the state of the camp of the besiegers, Luca 
di Savelli and Stefanello Colonna were closeted with a 
stranger who had privately entered Palestrina on the 
night before the Romans pitched their tents beneath its 
walls. This visitor, who might have somewhat passed 
his fortieth year, yet retained, scarcely diminished, the 
uncommon beauty of form and countenance for which 
his youth had been remarkable. But it was no longer 
that character of beauty which has been described in his 
first introduction to the reader. It was no longer the 
almost womanly delicacy of feature and complexion , or 
the high-born polish and graceful suavity of manner, 
which distinguished Walter de Montreal: a life of 
vicissitude and war had at length done its work. His 
hearing was now abrupt and imperious, as that of one 
accustomed to rule wild spirits, and he had exchanged 
the grace of persuasion for the sternness of command. 
His athletic form had grown more spare and sinewy, 
and instead of the brow half shaded by fair and clus- 
tering curls, his forehead, though yet but slightly 
wrinkled, was completely bald at the temples; and by 
its unwonted height increased the dignity and manli- 
ness of his aspect. The bloom of his complexion was 
faded, less by outward exposure than inward thought, 
into a bronzed and settled paleness; and his features 
seemed more marked and prominent, as the flesh had 


264 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


somewhat sunk from the contour of the cheek. Yet the 
change suited the change of age and circumstance; and 
if the Provencal now less realized the idea of the brave 
and fair knight-errant, he hut looked the more what 
the knight-errant had become, — the sagacious coun- 
sellor and the mighty leader. 

“You must he aware,” said Montreal, continuing a 
discourse which appeared to have made great impression 
on his companions, “ that in this contest between your- 
selves and the Senator I alone hold the balance. Eienzi 
is utterly in my power, — my brothers, the leaders of 
his army; myself, his creditor. It rests with me to 
secure him on the throne or to send him to the scaffold. 
I have but to give the order, and the Grand Company 
enter Rome; but without their agency, methinks if you 
keep faith with me, our purpose can be effected.” 

“ In the mean while Palestrina is besieged by your 
brothers!” said Stefanello, sharply. 

“ But they have my orders to waste their time before 
its walls. Do you not see that by this very siege, 
fruitless as, if I will, it shall he, Rienzi loses fame 
abroad, and popularity in Rome.” 

“ Sir knight,” said Luca di Savelli, “ you speak as a 
man versed in the profound policy of the times; and 
under all the circumstances which menace us, your 
proposal seems but fitting and reasonable. On the one 
hand you undertake to restore us and the other barons 
to Rome; and to give Rienzi to the Staircase of the 
Lion — ” 

“Not so, not so,” replied Montreal, quickly. “I 
will consent either so to subdue and cripple his power 
as to render him a puppet in our hands, a mere shadow 
of authority, — or, if his proud spirit chafe at its cage, to 
give it once more liberty amongst the wilds of Germany. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 265 


I would fetter or banish him, hut not destroy; unless,” 
added Montreal, after a moment’s pause, “Fate abso- 
lutely drives us to it. Power should not demand 
victims; but to secure it, victims may be necessary.” 

“ I understand your refinements,” said Luca di Savelli, 
with his icy smile, " and am satisfied. The barons once 
restored, our palaces once more manned, and I am will- 
ing to take the chance of the Senator’s longevity. This 
service you promise to effect ? ” 

“I do.” 

“ And, in return, you demand our assent to your 
enjoying the rank of Podesta for five years?” 

“ You say right.” 

“I, for one, accede to the terms,” said the Savelli: 
“there is my hand; I am wearied of these brawls, even 
amongst ourselves, and think that a foreign ruler may 
best enforce order: the more especially if, like you, sir 
knight, one whose birth and renown are such as to 
make him comprehend the difference between barons 
and plebeians. ” 

“ For my part,” said Stefanello, “ I feel that we have 
but a choice of evils, — I like not a foreign Podesta; 
but I like a plebeian Senator still less, — there too is my 
hand, sir knight.” 

“ Noble signors,” said Montreal, after a short pause, 
and turning his piercing gaze from one to the other with 
great deliberation, “ our compact is sealed. One word 
by way of codicil. Walter de Montreal is no Count 
Pepin of Minorbino! Once before, little dreaming, I 
own, that the victory would be so facile, I intrusted 
your cause and mine to a deputy; your cause he pro- 
moted, mine he lost. He drove out the Tribune, and 
then suffered the barons to banish himself. This time 
I see to my own affairs; and, mark you, I have learned 


266 RIENZT, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


in the Grand Company one lesson, — namely, never to 
pardon spy or deserter, of whatever rank. Your for- 
giveness for the hint. Let us change the theme. So 
ye detain in your fortress my old friend the Baron di 
Gastello?” 

“Ay,” said Luca di Savelli; for Stefanello, stung 
by Montreal’s threat, which he dared not openly resent, 
preserved a sullen silence, — “ay, he is one noble the 
less to the Senator’s council.” 

“ You act wisely. I know his views and temper; at 
present dangerous to our interests. Yet use him well, 
I entreat you; he may hereafter serve us. And now, 
my lords, my eyes are weary, suffer me to retire. 
Pleasant dreams of the new revolution to us all ! ” 

“ By your leave, noble Montreal, we will attend you 
to your couch,” said Luca di Savelli. 

“ By my troth , and ye shall not. I am no Tribune 
to have great signors for my pages ; but a plain gentle- 
man and a hardy soldier: your attendants will conduct 
me to whatever chamber yoUr hospitality assigns to one 
who could sleep soundly beneath the rudest hedge under 
your open skies.” 

Savelli, however, insisted on conducting the Podesta 
that was to be to his apartment. He then returned to 
Stefanello, whom he found pacing the saloon with long 
and disordered strides. 

“What have we done, Savelli?” said he, quickly; 
“ sold our city to a barbarian ! ” 

“ Sold ! ” said Savelli ; “ to my mind it is the other 
part of the contract in which we have played our share. 
We have bought, Colonna, not sold, — bought our lives 
from yon army; bought our power, our fortunes, our 
castles, from the demagogue Senator; bought, what is 
better than all, triumph and revenge. Tush, Colonna, 


RIENZT, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 267 


see you not that if we had balked this great warrior, we 
had perished? Leagued with the Senator, the Grand 
Company would have marched to Kome; and whether 
Montreal assisted or murdered Rienzi (for methinks he 
is a Romulus who would brook no Remus), we had 
equally been undone. Now we have made our own 
terms, and our shares are equal. Nay, the first steps 
to he taken are in our favor. Rienzi is to be snared, 
and we are to enter Rome.” 

“ And then the Provenqal is to be despot of the city.” 

“Podesta, if you please. Podestas who offend the 
people are often banished and sometimes stoned; 
Podestas who insult the nobles are often stilettoed and 
sometimes poisoned,” said Savelli. “‘Sufficient for 
the day is the evil thereof.’ Meanwhile, say nothing 
to the bear, Orsini. Such men mar all wisdom. Come, 
cheer thee, Stefanello.” 

“ Luca di Savelli , you have not such a stake in Rome 
as I have,” said the young lord, haughtily; “ no Podesta 
can take from you the rank of the first signor of the 
Italian metropolis!” 

“ An’ you had said so to the Orsini, there would have 
been drawing of swords,” said Savelli. “But cheer 
thee, I say. Is not our first care to destroy Rienzi, and 
then, between the death of one foe and the rise of 
another, are there not such preventives as Ezzelino da 
Romano has taught to wary men? Cheer thee, I say; 
and, next year, if we but hold together, Stefanello 
Colonna and Luca di Savelli will he joint senators of 
Rome, and these great men food for worms!” 

While thus conferred the barons, Montreal, ere he 
retired to rest, stood gazing from the open lattice of his 
chamber over the landscape below, which slept in the 
autumnal moonlight, while at a distance gleamed, pale 


268 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

and steady, the lights round the encampment of the 
besiegers. 

" Wide plains and broad valleys,” thought the war- 
rior, " soon shall ye repose in peace beneath a new sway, 
against which no petty tyrant shall dare rebel. And 
ye, white walls of canvas, even while I gaze, — ye 
admonish me how realms are won. Even as of old, 
from the Nomad tents was built up the stately Babylon,^ 
that ‘ was not till the Assyrian founded it for them that 
dwell in the wilderness ; ’ so by the new Ishmaelites of 
Europe shall a race, undreamed of now, be founded; and 
the camp of yesterday be the city of to-morrow. Verily, 
when, for one soft offence, the pontiff thrust me from 
the bosom of the Church, little guessed he what enemy 
he raised to Rome ! How solemn is the night ! — how 
still the heavens and earth ! — the very stars are as 
hushed as if intent on the events that are to pass 
below! So solemn and so still feels mine own spirit, 
and an awe unknown till now warns me that I approach 
the crisis of my daring fate ! ” 


1 Isaiah xxii. 


BOOK X, 


THE LION OF BASALT. 

Ora voglio contare la raorte del Tribuno. — Vita di Cola di 
Rienziy lib. ii. cap. 24. 

Now will I narrate the death of the Tribune. Life of Cola di 
Rienzi. 






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BOOK X. 


CHAPTER I. 

The Conjunction of Hostile Planets in the House of Death. 

On the fourth day of the siege, and after beating back 
to those almost impregnable walls the soldiery of the 
barons, headed by the Prince of the Orsini, the Senator 
returned to his tent, where despatches from Home 
awaited him. He ran his eye hastily over them, till 
he came to the last ; yet each contained news that might 
have longer delayed the eye of a man less inured to 
danger. From one he learned that Albornoz, whose 
blessing had confirmed to him the rank of Senator, had 
received with special favor the messengers of the Orsini 
and Colonna. He knew that the cardinal, whose views 
connected him with the Homan patricians, desired his 
downfall; but he feared not Albornoz: perhaps in his 
secret heart he wished that any open aggression from 
the pontiff’s legate might throw him wholly on the 
people. 

He learned, further, that, short as had been his 
absence, Pandulfo di Guido had twice addressed the 
populace, not in favor of the Senator, but in artful 
regrets of the loss to the trade of Home in the absence 
of her wealthiest nobles. 


272 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ For this, then, he has deserted me, ” said Eienzi to 
himself. “ Let him beware ! ” 

The tidings contained in the next touched him home : 
Walter de Montreal had openly arrived in Rome. The 
grasping and lawless bandit, whose rapine filled with a 
robber’s booty every bank in Europe; whose company 
was the army of a king; whose ambition, vast, unprinci- 
pled, and profound, he so well knew; whose brothers 
were in his camp, their treason already more than sus- 
pected, — Walter de Montreal was in Rome ! 

The Senator remained perfectly aghast at this new 
peril; and then said, setting his teeth as in a vice, — 
“Wild tiger, thou art in the lion’s den!” Then 
pausing, he broke out again : “ One false step, Walter 
de Montreal, and all the mailed hands of the Grand 
Company shall not pluck thee from the abyss! But 
what can I do ? Return to Rome, — the plans of Mon- 
treal unpenetrated, no accusation against him! On what 
pretence can I with honor raise the siege? To leave 
Palestrina is to give a triumph to the barons; to 
abandon Adrian, to degrade my cause. Yet, while away 
from Rome, every hour breeds treason and danger. 
Pandulfo, Albornoz, Montreal, — all are at work against 
me. A keen and trusty spy, now, — ha, well thought 
of ! — Villani ! What, ho ! Angelo Villani ! ” 

The young chamberlain appeared. 

“I think,” said Rienzi, “to have often heard that 
thou art an orphan ? ” 

“ True, my lord ; the old Augustine nun who reared 
my boyhood has told me again and again that my 
parents are dead. Both noble, my lord; but I am the 
child of shame. And I say it often, and think of it ever, 
in order to make Angelo Villani remember that he has a 
name to win. ” 


EIENZr, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 273 


“ Young man, serve me as you have served, and if I 
live you shall have no need to call yourself an orphan. 
Mark me! I want a friend: the Senator of Kome 
wants a friend, — only one friend, gentle Heaven ! only 
one!” 

Angelo sunk on his knee, and kissed the mantle of his 
lord. 

“ Say a follower. I am too mean to he Kienzi’s 
friend. ” 

“ Too mean ! Go to ! there is nothing mean before 
God, unless it be a base soul under high titles. With 
me, boy, there is but one nobility, and Nature signs its 
charter. Listen : thou hearest daily of Walter de Mon- 
treal, brother to these Provencals, — great captain of 
great robbers ? ” 

“ Ay, and I have seen him, my lord. ” 

“ Well, then, he is in Pome. Some daring thought, 
some well-supported and deep-schemed villany, could 
alone make that bandit venture openly into an Italian 
city, whose territories he ravaged by fire and sword a 
few months back. But his brothers have lent me 
money, assisted my return, — for their own ends, it is 
true ; but the seeming obligation gives them real power. 
These Northern swordsmen would cut my throat if the 
Great Captain bade them. He counts on my supposed 
weakness. I know him of old. I suspect, — nay, I read 
his projects; but I cannot prove them. Without proof, 
I cannot desert Palettrina in order to accuse and seize 
him. Thou art shrewd, thoughtful, acute, — couldst 
thou go to Pome ? — watch day and night his move- 
ments; see if he receive messengers from Albornoz or 
the barons, if he confer with Pandulfo di Guido; 
watch his lodgment, I say, night and day. He affects 
no concealment; your task will be less difficult than it 
VOL. II. — 18 


274 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TEIBUNES. 

seems. Apprise the signora of all you learn. Give me 
your news daily. Will you undertake this mission ? ” 

“ I will, my lord. ” ^ 

“ To horse, then, quick ! — and, mind, save the wife 
of my bosom, I have no confidant in Eome.” 



/ 


RIENZI,THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 275 


CHAPTER II. 

Montreal at Rome. — His reception of Angelo Villani. 

The danger that threatened Rienzi by the arrival of 
Montreal was indeed formidable. The Knight of St. 
John, having marched his army into Lombardy, had 
placed it at the disposal of the Venetian State in its war 
with the Archbishop of Milan. For this service he 
received an immense sum; while he provided winter 
quarters for his troop, for whom he proposed ample 
work in the ensuing spring. Leaving Palestrina secretly 
and in disguise, with but a slender train, which met him 
at Tivoli, Montreal repaired to Rome. His ostensible 
object was partly to congratulate the Senator on his 
return, partly to receive the moneys lent to Rienzi by his 
brother. 

His secret object we have partly seen; but, not con- 
tented with the support of the barons, he trusted, by 
the corrupting means of his enormous wealth, to form 
a third party in support of his own ulterior designs. 
Wealth, indeed, in that age and in that land was 
scarcely less the purchaser of diadems than it had been 
in the later days of the Roman Empire. And in many 
a city torn by hereditary feuds, the hatred of faction 
rose to that extent that a foreign tyrant willing and able 
to expel one party might obtain at least the temporary 
submission of the other. His after-success was greatly 
in proportion to his power to maintain his state by a force 
which was independent of the citizens, and by a treasury 


276 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


which did not require the odious recruit of taxes. But, 
more avaricious than ambitious, more cruel than firm, it 
was by griping exaction or unnecessary bloodshed that 
such usurpers usually fell. 

Montreal, who had scanned the frequent revolutions 
of the time with a calm and investigating eye, trusted 
that he should be enabled to avoid both these errors; 
and, as the reader has already seen, he had formed the 
profound and sagacious project of consolidating his 
usurpation by an utterly new race of nobles, who, serv- 
ing him by the feudal tenure of the North, and ever 
ready to protect him, because in so doing they protected 
their own interests, should assist to erect, not the rotten 
and unsupported fabric of a single tyranny, but the 
strong fortress of a new, hardy, and compact aristocratic 
state. Thus had the great dynasties of the North been 
founded; in which a king, though seemingly curbed by 
the barons, was in reality supported by a common inter- 
est, whether against a subdued population or a foreign 
invasion. 

Such were the vast schemes — extending into yet wider 
fields of glory and conquest, bounded only by the Alps 

— with which the Captain of the Grand Company beheld 
the columns and arches of the Seven-hilled City. 

No fear disturbed the long current of his thoughts. 
His brothers were the leaders of Eienzi’s hireling army, 

— that army were his creatures. Over Eienzi himself 
he assumed the right of a creditor. Thus against one 
party he deemed himself secure. For the friends of the 
pope he had supported himself with private though 
cautious letters from Albornoz, who desired only to 
make use of him for the return of the Eoman barons; 
and with the heads of the latter we have already wit- 
nessed his negotiations. Thus was he fitted, as he 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 277 

thought, to examine, to tamper with all parties and to 
select from each the materials necessary for his own 
objects. 

The open appearance of Montreal excited in Eome no 
inconsiderable sensation. The friends of the barons gave 
out that Rienzi was in league with the Grand Company ; 
and that he was to sell the imperial city to the plunder 
and pillage of barbarian robbers. The effrontery with 
which Montreal (against whom more than once the pon- 
tiff had thundered his hulls) appeared in the Metropoli- 
tan City of the Church, was made yet more insolent by 
the recollection of that stern justice which had led the 
Tribune to declare open war against all- the robbers of 
Italy; and this audacity was linked with the obvious 
reflection, that the brothers of the bold Provencal were 
the instruments of Rienzi’s return. So quickly spread 
suspicion through the city, that MontreaFs presence 
alone would in a few weeks have sufficed to ruin the 
Senator. Meanwhile the natural boldness of Montreal 
silenced every whisper of prudence; and blinded by the 
dazzle of his hopes, the Knight of St. John, as if to 
give double importance to his coming, took up his resi- 
dence in a sumptuous palace, and his retinue rivalled, 
in the splendor of garb and pomp, the display of Rienzi 
himself in his earlier and more brilliant power. 

Amidst the growing excitement Angelo Villani arrived 
at Rome. The character of this young man had been 
formed by his peculiar circumstances. He possessed 
qualities which often mark the illegitimate as with a 
common stamp. He was insolent, — like most of those 
who hold a double rank ; and while ashamed of his bas- 
tardy, was arrogant of the supposed nobility of his un- 
known parentage. The universal ferment and agitation 
of Italy at that day rendered ambition the most common 


278 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


of all the passions, and thus ambition, in all its many 
shades and varieties, forces itself into our delineations of 
character in this history. Though not for Angelo Yillani 
were the dreams of the more lofty and generous order of 
that sublime infirmity, he was strongly incited by the 
desire and resolve to rise. He had warm affections and 
grateful impulses; and his fidelity to his patron had been 
carried to a virtue ; but from his irregulated and desul- 
tory education, and the reckless profligacy of those with 
whom, in antechambers and guardrooms, much of his 
youth had been passed, he had neither high principles 
nor an enlightened honor. Like most Italians, cunning 
and shrewd, he scrupled not at any deceit that served 
a purpose or a friend. His strong attachment to E-ienzi 
had been unconsciously increased by the gratification of 
pride and vanity, flattered by the favor of so celebrated 
a man. Both self-interest and attachment urged him to 
every effort to promote the views and safety of one at 
once his benefactor and patron; and, on undertaking 
his present mission, his only thought was to fulfil it 
with the most complete success. Far more brave and 
daring than was common with the Italians, something of 
the hardihood of an Ultramontane race gave nerve and 
vigor to his craft ; and from what his art suggested, his 
courage never shrunk. 

When Rienzi had first detailed to him the objects of 
his present task , he instantly called to mind his adven- 
ture with the tall soldier in the crowd at Avignon. 
“ If ever thou wantest a friend, seek him in Walter de 
Montreal,” were words that had often rung in his ear, 
and they now recurred to him with prophetic distinct- 
ness. He had no doubt that it was Montreal himself 
whom he had seen. Why the Great Captain should 
have taken this interest in him, Angelo little cared to 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 279 

conjecture. Most probably it was but a crafty pretence, 
— one of the common means by which the chief of the 
Grand Company attracted to himself the youths of Italy, 
as well as the warriors of the North. He only thought 
now how he could turn the knight's promise to account. 
What more easy than to present himself to Montreal, 
remind him of the words, enter his service, and thus 
effectually watch his conduct? The office of spy was 
not that which would have pleased every mind, but it 
shocked not the fastidiousness of Angelo Villani; and 
the fearful hatred with which his patron had often 
spoken of the avaricious and barbarian robber — the 
scourge of his native land — had infected the young 
man, who had much of the arrogant and mock patriot- 
ism of the Romans, with a similar sentiment. More 
vindictive even than grateful, he bore, too, a secret 
grudge against Montreal’s brothers, whose rough address 
had often wounded his pride; and, above all, his early 
recollections of the fear and execration in which Ursula 
seemed ever to hold the terrible Fra Moreale, impressed 
him with a vague belief of some ancient wrong to him- 
self or his race, perpetrated by the Provencal, which he 
was not ill-pleased to have the occasion to avenge. In 
truth, the words of Ursula, mystic and dark as they 
were in their denunciation, had left upon Villani ’s 
boyish impressions an unaccountable feeling of antipathy 
and hatred to the man it was now his object to betray. 
For the rest, every device seemed to him decorous and 
justifiable, so that it savta his master, served his 
country, and advanced himself. 

Montreal was alone in his chamber when it was 
announced to him that a young Italian craved an 
audience. Professionally open to access, he forthwith 
gave admission to the applicant. 


280 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

The Knight of St. John instantly recognized the page 
he had encountered at Avignon ; and when Angelo 
Villani said, with easy boldness, “ I have come to 
remind Sir Walter de Montreal of a promise,” the 
knight interrupted him with cordial frankness, “ Thou 
needest not, — I remember it. Dost thou now require 
my friendship ? ” 

“I do, noble signor!” answered Angelo; “I know 
not where else to seek a patron.” 

“ Canst thou read and write? I fear me, not.” 

" I have been taught those arts,” replied Villani. 

“ It is well. Is thy birth gentle 1 ” 

“ It is.” 

" Better still ; — thy name ? ” 

“ Angelo Villani.” 

“I take thy blue eyes and low broad brow,” said 
Montreal, with a slight sigh, “ in pledge of thy truth. 
Henceforth, Angelo Villani, thou art in the list of my 
secretaries. Another time thou shalt tell me more of 
thyself. Thy service dates from this day. For the 
rest, no man ever wanted wealth who served Walter de 
Montreal; nor advancement, if he served him faith- 
fully. My closet, through yonder door, is thy waiting- 
room. Ask for, and send hither, Lusignan of Lyons; 
he is my chief scribe, and will see to thy comforts and 
instruct thee in thy business.” 

Angelo withdrew; MontreaTs eye followed him. 

“ A strange likeness ! ” said he , musingly and sadly ; 
“ my heart leaps to tha,t boy ! ” 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 281 


CHAPTER III. 

Montreal’s Banquet. 

Some few days after the date of the last chapter, Rienzi 
received news from Rome which seemed to produce in 
him a joyous and elated excitement. His troops still 
lay before Palestrina, and still the banners of the barons 
waved over its unconquered walls. In truth, the Ital- 
ians employed half their time in brawls amongst them- 
selves; the Velletritrani had feuds with the people of 
Tivoli, and the Romans were still afraid of conquering 
the barons. “The hornet,” said they, “stings worse 
after he is dead; and neither an Orsini, a Savelli, nor 
a Colonna was ever known to forgive.” 

Again and again had the captains of his army assured 
the indignant Senator that the fortress was impreg- 
nable, and that time and money were idly wasted upon 
the siege. Rienzi knew better, hut he concealed his 
thoughts. 

He now summoned to his tent the brothers of 
Provence, and announced to them his intention of 
returning instantly to Rome. “ The mercenaries shall 
continue the siege under our lieutenant, and you, with 
my Roman legipn, shall accompany me. Your brother. 
Sir Walter, and I, both want your presence; we have 
affairs to arrange between us. After a few days I shall 
raise recruits in the city, and return.” 

This was what the brothers desired ; they approved, 
with evident joy, the Senator’s proposition. 


282 EIENZr, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


Eienzi next sent for the lieutenant of his body-guard, 
the same Kiccardo Annibaldi whom the reader will 
remember, in the earlier part of this work, as the 
antagonist of Montreal’s lance. This young man — 
one of the few nobles who espoused the cause of the 
Senator — had evinced great courage and military 
ability, and promised fair (should Fate spare his life^) 
to become one of the best captains of his time. 

“Dear Annibaldi,” said Kienzi, “at length I can 
fulfil the project on which we have privately conferred. 
I take with me to Rome the two Provencal captains, — 
I leave you chief of the army. Palestrina will yield 
now, eh — ha, ha, ha! — Palestrina will yield now!” 

“By my right hand, I think so, Senator,” replied 
Annibaldi. “ These foreigners have hitherto only 
stirred up quarrels amongst ourselves, and if not 
cowards are certainly traitors.” 

“Hush, hush, hush! Traitors! The learned 
Arimhaldo, the brave Brettone, traitors! Fie on it! 
No, no; they are very excellent, honorable men, but 
not lucky in the camp, — not lucky in the camp; 
better speed to them in the city ! And now to 
business. ” 

The Senator then detailed to Annibaldi the plan he 
himself had formed for taking the town ; and the mili- 
tary skill of Annibaldi at once recognized its feasibility. 

With his Roman troop, and Montreal’s brothers, one 
at either hand, Rienzi then departed to Rome. 

That night Montreal gave a banquet to Pandulfo di 
Guido, and to certain of the principal citizens whom 

1 It appears that this was the same Annibaldi who was after- 
wards slain in an affray. Petrarch lauds his valor and laments 
his fate. 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 283 

one by one he had already sounded, and found hollow 
at heart to the cause of the Senator. 

Pandulfo sat at the right hand of the Knight of 
St. John, and Montreal lavished upon him the most 
courteous attentions. 

“ Pledge me in this, — it is from the Vale of Chiana, 
near Monte Pulciano,” said Montreal. “ I think I 
have heard bookmen say (you know. Signor Pandulfo, 
we ought all to be bookmen now!) that the site was 
renowned of old. In truth, the wine hath a racy 
flavor. ” 

“I hear,” said Bruttini, one of the lesser barons (a 
stanch friend to the Colonna) , “ that in this respect the 
innkeeper’s son has put his book-learning to some use : 
he knows every place where the wine grows richest. ” 

“ What ! the Senator is turned wine-bibber ! ” said 
Montreal, quaffing a vast gobletful; “that must unfit 
him for business, — ’tis a pity.” 

“Verily, yes,” said Pandulfo; “a man at the head 
of a state should be temperate, — I never drink wine 
unmixed.” 

“ Ah,” whispered Montreal, “ if your calm good sense 
ruled Kome, then, indeed, the metropolis of Italy might 
taste of peace. Signor Vivaldi,” — and the host turned 
towards a wealthy draper, — “ these disturbances are bad 
for trade.” 

“ Very, very I ” groaned the draper. 

“The barons are your best customers,” quoth the 
minor noble. 

“ Much, much! ” said the draper. 

“ ’Tis a pity that they are thus roughly expelled,” 
said Montreal, in a melancholy tone. “Would it not 
be possible, if the Senator (I drink his health) were less 
rash — less zealous, rather — to unite free institutions 


284 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


with the return of the barons? Such should be the 
task of a truly wise statesman ! ” 

“It surely 'might be possible,” returned Vivaldi; 
“ the Savelli alone spend more with me than all the 
rest of Kome.” 

“I know not if it be possible,” said Bruttini; “but 
I do know that it is an outrage to all decorum that an 
innkeeper’s son should be enabled to make a solitude 
of the palaces of Kome.” 

“ It certainly seems to indicate too vulgar a desire 
of mob favor,” said Montreal. “ However, I trust we 
shall harmonize all these differences. Kienzi, perhaps 
— nay , doubtless , means well ! ” 

“I would,” said Vivaldi, who had received his cue, 
“ that we might form a mixed constitution, — plebeians 
and patricians, each in their separate order.” 

“ But,” said Montreal, gravely, “ so new an experiment 
would demand great physical force.” 

“Why, true; but we might call in an umpire, — a 
foreigner who had no interest in either faction, — who 
might protect the new Buono Stato ; a Podesta , as we 
have done before, — Brancaleone, for instance. How 
well and wisely he ruled ! That was a golden age for 
Kome. A Podesta forever ! — that’s my theory.” 

“ You need not seek far for the president of your 
council,” said Montreal, smiling at Pandulfo; “a citi- 
zen at once popular, well-born, and wealthy, may be 
found at my right hand.” 

Pandulfo hemmed and colored. 

Montreal proceeded. “ A committee of trades might 
furnish an honorable employment to Signor Vivaldi; 
and the treatment of all foreign affairs, the employment 
of armies, etc. , might be left to the barons, with a more 
open competition. Signor di Bruttini, to the barons of 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 285 


the second order than has hitherto been conceded to 
their birth and importance. Sirs, will you taste the 
Malvoisie 'I ” 

“Still,” said Vivaldi, after a pause (Vivaldi antici- 
pated at least the supplying with cloth the whole of the 
Grand Company), — “still, such a moderate and well- 
digested constitution would never be acceded to by 
E-ienzi.” 

“ Why should it ? what need of Eienzi ? ” exclaimed 
Bruttini. “ Kienzi may take another trip to Bohemia.” 

“ Gently, gently,” said Montreal; “ I do not despair. 
All open violence against the Senator would strengthen 
his power. No, no; humble him, — admit the barons, 
and then insist on your own terms. Between the two 
factions you might then establish a fitting balance. 
And in order to keep your new constitution from the 
encroachment of either extreme, there are warriors and 
knights, too, who for a certain rank in the great city 
of Borne would maintain horse and foot at its service. 
We Ultramontanes are often harshly judged; we are 
wanderers and Ishmaelites, solely because we have no 
honorable place of rest. Now, if I — ” 

“Ay, if you, noble Montreal! ” said Vivaldi. 

The company remained hushed in breathless atten- 
tion, when suddenly there was heard — deep, solemn, 
muffled — the great hell of the Capitol! 

“Hark,” said Vivaldi, “the hell; it tolls for execu- 
tion , — an unwonted hour ! ” 

“ Sure the Senator has not returned! ” exclaimed 
Pandulfo di Guido, turning pale. 

“ No, no,” quoth Bruttini; “ it is hut a robber, caught 
two nights ago in Bomagna. I heard that he was to die 
to-night. ” 

At the word “ robber ” Montreal changed countenance 


286 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


slightly. The wine circulated, the bell continued to 
toll, — its suddenness over, it ceased to alarm. Con- 
versation flowed again. 

“What were you saying, sir knight 1” said Vivaldi. 

Why, let me think on ’t ; oh, speaking of the 
necessity of supporting a new state by force, I said tliat 
if /— ” 

“ Ah, that was it ! ” quoth Bruttini, thumping the 
table. 

“ If I were summoned to your aid, — summoned, 
mind ye, and absolved by the pope’s legate of my former 
sins (they weigh heavily on me, gentles) , — I would 
myself guard your city from foreign foe and civil dis- 
turbance, with my gallant swordsmen. Not a Roman 
citizen should contribute a ^ danaro ’ to the cost.” 

“ Viva Fra Moreale 1 ” cried Bruttini ; and the shout 
was echoed by all the boon companions. 

“Enough for me,” continued Montreal, “to expiate 
my offences. Ye know, gentlemen, my order is vowed 
to God and the Church ; a warrior-monk am I ! Enough 
for me to expiate my offences, I say, in the defence of 
the Holy City. Yet I, too, have my private and more 
earthly views, — who is above them 1 I — The bell 
changes its note ! ” 

“ It is but the change that preludes execution, — the 
poor robber is about to die ! ” 

Montreal crossed himself, and resumed. “ I am a 
knight and a noble,” said he, proudly; “the profession 
I have followed is that of arms ; but — I will not dis- 
guise it — mine equals have regarded me as one who has 
stained his scutcheon by too reckless a pursuit of glory 
and of gain. I wish to reconcile myself with my order, 
to purchase a new name, to vindicate myself to the 
grand master and the pontiff. I have had hints, gentles. 


p 

RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 287 

— hints that I might best promote my interest by restor- 
ing order to the papal metropolis. The legate Albornoz 
(here is his letter) recommends me to keep watch upon 
the Senator.” 

“Surely,” interrupted Pandulfo, “I hear steps below.” 

“ The mob going to the robber’s execution,” said Brut- 
tini. “ Proceed, sir knight ! ” 

“ And,” continued Montreal, surveying his audience 
before he proceeded further, “ what think ye (I do but 
ask your opinion, wiser than mine), — what think ye, 
as a fitting precaution against too arbitrary a power in 
the Senator, — what think ye of the return of the 
Colonna and the bold barons of Palestrina?” 

“ Here ’s to their health ! ” cried Vivaldi, rising. 

As by a sudden impulse, the company rose. “ To the 
health of the besieged barons ! ” was shouted aloud. 

“Next, what if (I do but humbly suggest) — what if 
you gave the Senator a colleague? — it is no affront to 
him. It was but as yesterday that one of the Colonna, 
who was senator, received a colleague in Bertoldo 
Orsini.” 

“A most wise precaution,” cried Vivaldi. “And 
where a colleague like Pandulfo di Guido?” 

“ Viva Pandulfo di Guido P' cried the guests; and 
again their goblets were drained to the bottom. 

“And if 'in this I can assist ye by fair words with 
the Senator (ye know he owes me moneys, — my 
brothers have served him), command Walter de 
Montreal.” 

“ And if fair words fail ? ” said Vivaldi. 

“The Grand Company (heed me, ye are the coun- 
sellors) — the Grand Company is accustomed to forced 
inarches ! ” 

“ Viva Fra Moreale / ” cried Bruttini and Vivaldi, 


288 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


simultaneously. health to all, my friends,” con- 

tinued Bruttini, — “a health to the barons, Rome’s old 
friends ; to Pandulfo di Guido, the Senator’s new col- 
league ; and to Fra Moreale, Rome’s new Podesta.” 

The bell has ceased,” said Vivaldi, putting down 
his goblet. 

Heaven have mercy on the robber ! ” added Bruttini. 

Scarce had he spoken, ere three taps were heard at the 
door ; the guests looked at each other in dumb amaze. 

“ New guests ! ” said Montreal. I asked some trusty 
friends to join us this evening. By my faith they are 
welcome ! Enter ! ” 

The door opened slowly ; three by three entered, in 
complete armor, the guards of the Senator. On they 
marched, regular and speechless. They surrounded the 
festive board, they filled the spacious hall, and the 
lights of the banquet were reflected upon their corselets 
as on a wall of steel. 

Not a syllable was uttered by the feasters ; they were 
as if turned to stone. Presently the guards gave way, 
and Rienzi himself appeared. He approached the 
table, and, folding his arms, turned his gaze deliber- 
ately from guest to guest, till at last his eyes rested on 
Montreal, who had also risen, and who alone of the 
party had recovered the amaze of the moment. 

And there, as these two men, each so celebrated, so 
proud, able, and ambitious, stood, front to front, it 
was literally as if the rival spirits of force and intellect, 
order and strife, of the falchion and the fasces, — the 
antagonist Principles by which empires are ruled and 
empires overthrown, — had met together, incarnate and 
opposed. They stood, both silent, as if fascinated by 
each other’s gaze ; loftier in stature and nobler in 
presence than all around. 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 289 


Montreal spoke first, and with a forced smile. 

Senator of Rome ! dare I believe that my poor 
banquet tempts thee, and may I trust that these armed 
men are a graceful compliment to one to whom arms 
have been a pastime 1 ” 

Rienzi answered not, but waved his hand to his 
guards. Montreal was seized on the instant. Again 
he surveyed the guests, — as a bird from the rattle- 
snake shrunk Pandulfo di Guido, trembling, motion- 
less, aghast, from the glittering eye of the Senator. 
Slowly Rienzi raised his fatal hand towards the unhappy 
citizen. Pandulfo saw — felt his doom, shrieked, and 
fell senseless in the arms of the soldiers. 

One other and rapid glance cast the Senator round the 
board, and then, with a disdainful smile as if anxious 
for no meaner prey, turned away. Not a breath had 
hitherto passed his lips, — all had been dumb '^show ; 
and his grim silence had imparted a more freezing terror 
to his unguessed-for apparition. Only, when he reached 
the door, he turned back, gazed upon the Knight of St. 
John’s bold and undaunted face, and said almost in a 
whisper, “Walter de Montreal! you heard the death- 
knell!” 



VOL. II. — 19 


290 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTER IV. 

The Sentence of Walter de Montreal. 

In silence the captain of the Grand Company was borne 
to the prison of the Capitol. In the same building 
lodged the rivals for the government of Rome ; the one 
occupied the prison, the other the palace. The guards 
forbore the ceremony of fetters, and leaving a lamp on 
the table, Montreal perceived he was not alone, — his 
brothers had preceded him. 

“Ye are happily met,” said the Knight of St. John; 
“ we have passed together pleasanter nights than this 
is likely to be.” 

“Can you jest, Walter P’ said Arimbaldo, half 
weeping. “Know you not that our doom is fixed? 
Death scowls upon us.” 

“ Death ! ” repeated Montreal, and for the first time 
his countenance changed; perhaps for the first time in 
his life he felt the thrill and agony of fear. 

“ Death ! ” he repeated again. “ Impossible ! He 
dare not, Brettone ; the soldiers, the Northmen ! — they 
will mutiny, they will pluck us back from the grasp of 
the headsman ! ” 

“ Cast from you so vain a hope,” said Brettone, sul- 
lenly ; “ the soldiers are encamped at Palestrina.” 

“ How ! Dolt, fool ! Came you then to Rome alone ! 
Are we alone with this dread man ? ” 

“ You are the dolt ! Why came you hither ? ” an- 
swered the brother. 


HIENZI, THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. 291 

“ Why, indeed ! but that I knew thou wast the cap- 
tain of the army ; and — But thou saidst right, the folly 
is mine, to have played against the crafty Tribune so 
unequal a brain as thine. Enough ! Reproaches are 
idle. When were ye arrested?” 

“ At dusk, — the instant we entered the gates of Rome. 
Rienzi entered privately.” 

“ Humph ! What can he know against me 1 Who 
can have betrayed me? My secretaries are tried, all 
trustworthy, except that youth, and he so seemingly 
zealous, — that Angelo Villani ! ” 

“Villani! Angelo Villani!” cried the brothers, in a 
breath. Hast thou confided aught to him ? ” 

Why, I fear he must have seen — at least in 
part — my correspondence with you and with the 
barons ; he was among my scribes. Know you aught 
of him ? ” 

‘^Walter, Heaven hath demented you!” returned 
Brettone. Angelo Villani is the favorite menial of 
the Senator.” 

“Those eyes deceived me, then,” muttered Montreal, 
solemnly and shuddering ; “ and as if her ghost had re- 
turned to earth, God smites me from the grave ! ” 

There was a long silence. At length Montreal, whose 
bold and sanguine temper was never long clouded, spoke 
again. 

“ Are the Senator’s coffers full ? But that is impos- 
sible.” 

“ Bare as a Dominican’s.” 

“We are saved, then. He shaU name his price for 
our heads. Money must be more useful to him than 
blood.” 

And as if with that thought all further meditation 
were rendered unnecessary, Montreal doffed his mantle, 


292 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


uttered a short prayer, and flung himself on a pallet in a 
corner of the cell. 

I have slept on worse beds,’* said the knight> 
stretching himself; and in a few minutes he was fast 
asleep. 

The brothers listened to his deep-drawn but regular 
breathing with envy and wonder, but they were in no 
mood to converse. Still and speechless, they sat like 
statues beside the sleeper. Time passed on, and the 
first cold air of the hour that succeeds to midnight crept 
through the bars of their cell. The bolts crashed, the 
door opened ; six men-at-arms entered, passed the 
brothers, and one of them touched Montreal. 

“ Ha ! ” said he, still sleeping, but turning round, — 
‘‘ha!” said he, in the soft Provengal tongue, “sweet 
Adeline, we will not rise yet, — it is so long since we 
met ! ” 

“What says he^” muttered the guard, shaking Mon- 
treal roughly. The knight sprang up at once, and his 
hand grasped the head of his bed as for his sword. He 
stared round bewildered, rubbed his eyes, and then gaz- 
ing on the guard, became alive to the present. 

“Ye are early risers in the Capitol,” said he. “ What 
want ye of me 1 ” 

“ It waits you ! ” 

“ It ! What ” said Montreal. 

‘‘The rack!” replied the soldier, with a malignant 
scowl. 

The Great Captain said not a word. He looked for 
one moment at the six swordsmen, as if measuring his 
single strength against theirs. His eye then wandered 
round the room. The rudest bar of iron would have 
been dearer to him than he had ever yet found the 
proofest steel of Milan. He completed his survey wdth 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 293 


a sigh, threw his mantle over his shoulders, nodded at 
his brethren, and followed the guard. 

In a hall of the Capitol, hung with the ominous silk 
of white rays on a blood-red ground, sat Rienzi and his 
councillors. Across a recess was drawn a black curtain. 

‘^Walter de Montreal,” said a small man at the foot of 
the table, ‘‘Knight of the illustrious order of St. John 
of Jerusalem — ” 

“ And Captain of the Grand Company ! ” added the 
prisoner, in a firm voice. 

“ You stand accused of divers counts : robbery and 
murder in Tuscany, Romagna, and Apulia — ” 

“For robbery and murder, brave men and belted 
knights,” said Montreal, drawing himself up, “would 
use the words ‘war and victory.’ To those charges I 
plead guilty. Proceed.” 

“You are next accused of treasonable conspiracy 
against the liberties of Rome for the restoration of the 
proscribed barons, and of traitorous correspondence with 
Stefanello Colonna at Palestrina.” 

“ My accuser ? ” 

“ Step forth, Angelo Villani ! ” 

“ You are my betrayer, then % ” said Montreal, steadily. 
“ I deserved this. I beseech you. Senator of Rome, let 
this young man retire. I confess my correspondence 
with the Colonna, and my desire to restore the Barons.” 

Rienzi motioned to Villani, who bowed and withdrew. 

“There rests only then for you, Walter de Montreal, 
to relate, fully and faithfully, the details of your con- 
spiracy.” 

“ That is impossible,” replied Montreal, carelessly. 

“ And why % ” 

“ Because, doing as I please with my own life, I will 
not betray the lives of others.” 


294 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ Bethink thee, — thou wouldst have betrayed the life 
of thy judge ! ” 

“ Not betrayed, — thou didst not trust me.” 

“ The law, Walter de JMontreal, hath sharp inquisitors. 
Behold! ” 

The black curtain was drawn aside, and the eye of 
Montreal rested on the executioner and the rack. His 
proud breast heaved indignantly. 

“ Senator of Kome, ” said he, “ these instruments are 
for serfs and villeins. I have been a warrior and a 
leader : life and death have been in my hands, — I have 
used them as I listed ; but to mine equal and my foe, I 
never proffered the insult of the rack.” 

“Sir Walter de Montreal,” returned the Senator, 
gravely, hut with some courteous respect, “ your answer 
is that which rises naturally to the lips of brave men. 
But learn from me, whom fortune hath made thy judge, 
that no more for serf and villein than for knight and 
noble are such instruments the engines of law or the 
tests of truth. I yielded hut to the desire of these 
reverend councillors to test thy nerves. But, wert thou 
the meanest peasant of the Campagna, before my judg- 
ment-seat thou needest not apprehend the torture. 
Walter de Montreal, amongst the princes of Italy thou 
hast known, amongst the Roman barons thou wouldst have 
aided, is there one who could make that boast ? ” 

“ I desired only, ” said Montreal, with some hesitation, 
“to unite the barons with thee; nor did I intrigue 
against thy life ! ” 

Bienzi frowned. “ Enough,” he said hastily. “ Knight 
of St. John, I know thy secret projects: subterfuge and 
evasion neither befit nor avail thee. If thou didst not 
intrigue against my life, thou didst intrigue against the 
life of Rome. Thou hast hut one favor left to demand 
on earth, — it is the manner of thy death.” 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 295 

Montreal’s lip worked convulsively. 

“ Senator, ” said he, in a low voice, “ may I crave 
audience with thee alone for one minute ? ” 

The councillors looked up. 

“ My lord, ” whispered the eldest of them, “ doubtless 
he hath concealed weapons ; trust him not. ” 

“ Prisoner, ” returned Rienzi, after a moment’s pause, 
“ if thou seekest for mercy, thy request is idle, and 
before my coadjutors I have no secret; speak out what 
thou hast to say ! ” 

“ Yet listen to me, ” said the prisoner, folding his arms ; 
“ it concerns not my life, but Rome’s welfare. ” 

“ Then, ” said Rienzi, in an altered tone, “ thy request 
is granted. Thou mayst add to thy guilt the design of 
the assassin, but for Rome I would dare greater danger. ” 

So saying, he motioned to the councillors, who slowly 
withdrew by the door which had admitted Villani, 
while the guards retired to the farthest extremity of the 
hall. 

“ Now, Walter de Montreal, be brief, for thy time is 
short. ” 

“ Senator,” said Montreal, “ my life can but little 
profit you ; men will say that you destroyed your cred- 
itor in order to cancel your debt. Fix a sum upon 
my life, estimate it at the price of a monarch’s; every 
florin shall be paid to you, and your treasury will be 
filled for five years to come. If the ‘ Buono Stato’ 
depends on your government, what I have asked your 
solicitude for Rome will not permit you to refuse.” 

“You mistake me, bold robber,” said Rienzi, sternly; 
“your treason I could guard against, and therefore 
forgive; your ambition^ never! Mark me, I know 
you! Place your hand on your heart and say whether,' 
could we change places, you, as Rienzi, would suffer all 


296 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

the gold of earth to purchase the life of Walter de 
Montreal? For men’s reading of my conduct, that 
must I hear; for my own reading, mine eyes must be 
purged from corruption. I am answerable to God for 
the trust of Eome. And Rome trembles while the 
head of the Grand Company lives in the plotting brain 
and the daring heart of Walter de Montreal. Man, 
wealthy, great, and subtle as you are, your hours are 
numbered; with the rise of the sun yoii die! ” 

Montreal’s eyes, fixed upon the Senator’s face, saw 
hope was over; his pride and his fortitude returned to 
him. 

“We have wasted words,” said he. “I played for a 
great stake, I have lost, and must pay the forfeit! I am 
prepared. On the threshold of the unknown world the 
dark spirit of prophecy rushes into us. Lord Senator, 
I go before thee to announce that in heaven or in hell, 
ere many days be over, room must be given to one 
mightier than I am! ” 

As he spoke, his form dilated, his eye glared; and 
Rienzi, cowering as never he had cowered before, shrunk 
back, and shaded his face with his hand. 

“ The manner of your death ? ” he asked in a hollow 
voice. 

“ The axe : it is that which befits knight and warrior. 
For thee. Senator, Fate hath a less noble death.” 

“ Robber, be dumb ! ” cried Rienzi, passionately. 
“ Guards, bear back the prisoner. At sunrise, Mon- 
treal — ” 

“ Sets the sun of the scourge of Italy, ” said the 
knight, bitterly. “Be it so. One request more: the 
Knights of St. John claim affinity with the Augustine 
order; grant me an Augustine confessor.” 

“ It is granted ; and, in return for thy denunciations. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 297 


I, who can give thee no earthly mercy, will implore the 
Judge of all for pardon to thy soul ! ” 

“ Senator, I have done with man’s mediation. My 
brethren ? Their deaths are not necessary to thy safety 
or thy revenge ! ” 

Eienzi mused a moment. “ ITo,’^ said he, “ dangerous 
tools they were, hut without the workman they may rust . 
unharming. They served me once too. Prisoner, their 
lives are spared. ” 


298 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTER V. 

The Discovery. 

The Council was broken up, — Rienzi hastened to his 
own apartments. Meeting Villani by the way, he 
pressed the youth’s hand affectionately. “You have 
saved Rome and me from great peril, ” said he ; “ the 
saints reward you ! ” Without tarrying for Villani’s 
answer, he hurried on. Nina, anxious and perturbed, 
awaited him in their chamber. 

“Not abed yet?” said he. “Fie, Nina, even thy 
beauty will not stand these vigils.” 

“ I could not rest till I had seen thee. I heard (all 
Rome has heard it ere this) that thou hast seized 
Walter de Montreal, and that he will perish by the 
headsman. ” 

“ The first robber that ever died so brave a death, ” 
returned Rienzi, slowly unrobing himself. 

“ Cola, I have never crossed your schemes, your 
policy, even by a suggestion. Enough for me to triumph 
in their success, to mourn for their failure. Now I ask 
thee one request, — spare me the life of this man. ” 

“Nina--” 

“ Hear me, — for thee I speak ! Despite his crimes, 
his valor and his genius have gained him admirers, even 
amongst his foes. Many a prince, many a state, that 
secretly rejoices at his fall, will affect horror against his 
judge. Hear me farther; his brothers aided your re- 
turn ; the world will term you ungrateful. His brothers 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 299 

lent you moneys; the world (out on it!) will term 
you — ” 

'‘Hold!” interrupted the Senator. “All that thou 
sayest, my mind forestalled. But thou knowest me, — 
to thee I have no disguise. No compact can bind 
Montreal’s faith, — no mercy win his gratitude. Before 
his red right hand truth and justice are swept away. If 
I condemn Montreal, I incur disgrace and risk danger, — 
granted. If I release him, ere the first showers of 
April, the chargers of the Northmen will neigh in the 
halls of the Capitol. Which shall I hazard in this alter- 
native, myself or Kome? Ask me no more, — to bed, 
to bed! ” 

“Couldst thou read my forebodings. Cola, — mystic, 
gloomy, unaccountable! ” 

“Forebodings! — I have mine,” answered Rienzi, 
sadly, gazing on space as if his thoughts peopled it with 
spectres. Then, raising his eyes to heaven, he said 
with that fanatical energy which made much both of his 
strength and weakness, “ Lord, mine at least not the sin 
of Saul ! The Amalekite shall not be saved ! ” 

While Bienzi enjoyed a short, troubled, and restless 
sleep, over which Nina watched, — unslumbering, anx- 
ious, tearful, and oppressed with dark and terrible fore- 
warnings, — the accuser was more happy than the judge. 
The last thoughts that floated before the young mind of 
Angelo Villani, ere wrapped in sleep, were bright and 
sanguine. He felt no honorable remorse that he had 
entrapped the confidence of another, — he felt only that 
his scheme had prospered, that his mission had been 
fulfilled. The grateful words of Bienzi rang in his ear; 
and hopes of fortune and power beneath the sway of 
the Boman Senator lulled him into slumber, and colored 
all his dreams. 


300 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


Scarce, however, had he been two hours asleep, ere 
he was wakened by one of the attendants of the palace, 
himself half awake. “Pardon me, Messere Villani,” 
said he, “ but there is a messenger below from the good 
Sister Ursula; he bids thee haste instantly to the con- 
vent, — she is sick unto death, and has tidings that crave 
thy immediate presence.” 

Angelo, whose morbid susceptibility as to his parent- 
age was ever excited by vague but ambitious hopes, 
started up, dressed hurriedly, and, joining the messenger 
below, repaired to the convent. In the court of the 
Capitol, and by the staircase of the Lion, was already 
heard the noise of the workmen; and, looking back, 
Villani beheld the scaffold, hung with black, sleeping 
cloudlike in the gray light of dawn ; at the same time 
the bell of the Capitol tolled heavily. A pang shot 
athwart him. He hurried on. Despite the immature 
earliness of the hour, he met groups of either sex, 
hastening along the streets to witness the execution of 
the redoubted Captain of the Grand Company. The 
Convent of the Augustines was at the farthest extremity 
of that city, even then so extensive, and the red light 
upon the hill-tops already heralded the rising sun, ere 
the young man reached the venerable porch. His name 
obtained him instant admittance. 

“ Heaven grant, ” said an old nun, who conducted him 
through a long and winding passage, “ that thou mayst 
bring comfort to the sick sister; she has pined for thee 
grievously since matins.” 

In a cell set apart for the reception of visitors (from 
the outward world), to such of the sisterhood as received 
the necessary dispensation, sat the aged nun. Angelo 
had only seen her once since his return to Kome, and 
since then disease had made rapid havoc on her form 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. SOI 

and features. And now, in her shroudlike garments and 
attenuated frame, she seemed by the morning light as a 
spectre whom day had surprised above the earth. She 
approached the youth, however, with a motion more 
elastic and rapid than seemed possible to her worn and 
ghastly form. “ Thou art come, ” she said. “ Well, 
well ! This morning after matins, my confessor, an 
Augustine, who alone knows the secrets of my life, took 
me aside, and told me that Walter de Montreal had been 
seized by the Senator; that he was adjudged to die, and 
that one of the Augustine brotherhood had been sent 
for to attend his last hours, — is it so ? ” 

“ Thou wert told aright, ” said Angelo , wonderingly. 
“ The man at whose name thou wert wont to shudder, 
against whom thou hast so often warned me, will die 
at sunrise.” 

“So soon! so soon! Oh, Mother of Mercy! — fly! 
thou art about the person of the Senator, thou hast high 
favor with him; fly ! down on thy knees, — and as thou 
hopest for God’s grace, rise not till thou hast won the 
ProvengaTs life.” 

“ She raves,” muttered Angelo, with white lips. 

“I do not rave, boy!” screeched the sister, wildly; 
“ know that my daughter was his leman. He disgraced 
our house, — a house haughtier than his own. Sinner 
that I was, I vowed revenge. His boy — they had only 
one! — was brought up in a robber’s camp; a life of 
bloodshed, a death of doom, a futurity of hell, were 
before him. I plucked the child from such a fate; I 
bore him away; I told the father he was dead; I placed 
him in the path to honorable fortunes. May my sin be 
forgiven me! Angelo Villani, thou art that child, — 
Walter de Montreal is thy father. But now, trembling 
on the verge of death, I shudder at the vindictive 
thoughts I once nourished. Perhaps — ” 


302 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ Sinner and accursed! ” interrupted Yillani, with a 
loud shout, — “sinner and accursed thou art indeed! 
Know that it was / who betrayed thy daughter’s lover! 
By the son’s treason dies the father! ” 

Not a moment more did he tarry; he waited not to 
witness the effect his words produced. As one frantic, 
as one whom a fiend possesses or pursues, he rushed 
from the convent; he flew through the desolate streets. 
The death-bell came, first indistinct, then loud, upon 
his ear. Every sound seemed to him like the curse of 
God. On — on — he passed the more deserted quarter ; 
crowds swept before him; he was mingled with the 
living stream, delayed, pushed hack, — thousands on 
thousands around, before him. Breathless, gasping, 
he still pressed on ; he forced his way ; he heard not, 
— he saw not, — all was like a dream. Up burst the 
sun over the distant hills! — the hell ceased! From 
right to left he pushed aside the crowd, — his strength 
was as a giant’s. He neared the fatal spot, A dead 
hush lay like a heavy air over the multitude. He heard 
a voice as he pressed along, deep and clear, — it was the 
voice of his father! — it ceased, — the audience breathed 
heavily; they murmured, they swayed to and fro. On, 
on, went Angelo Villani. The guards of the Senator 
stopped his way : he dashed aside their pikes ; he eluded 
their grasp; he pierced the armed harrier, — he stood on 
the Place of the Capitol. “Hold, hold!” he would 
have cried; hut horror struck him dumb. He beheld 
the gleaming axe, — he saw the bended neck. Ere 
another breath passed his lips, a ghastly and trunkless 
face was raised on high, — Walter de Montreal was no 
more! 

Villani saw, swooned not, shrunk not, breathed 
not! But he turned his eyes from that lifted head, 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 303 

dropping gore, to the balcony in which, according to 
custom, sat, in solemn pomp, the Senator of Kome, — 
and the face of that young man was as the face of a 
demon ! 

“Ha!” said he, muttering to himself, and recalling 
the words of Rienzi, seven years before, “ Blessed art 
thou who hast no blood of kindred to avenge ! ” 


304 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTEE VI. 

The Suspense. 

Walter de Montreal was buried in the Church of 
St. Maria dell’ Aracelli ; but the “ evil that he did 
lived after him! ” Although the vulgar had until his 
apprehension murmured against Eienzi for allowing so 
notorious a freebooter to be at large, he was scarcely 
dead ere they compassionated the object of their terror. 
With that singular species of piety which Montreal had 
always cultivated, as if a decorous and natural part of 
the character of a warrior, no sooner was his sentence 
fixed than he had surrendered himself to the devout 
preparation for death. With the Augustine friar he 
consumed the brief remainder of the night in prayer 
and confession, comforted his brothers, and passed to 
the scaffold with the step of a hero and the self-acquittal 
of a martyr. In the wonderful delusions of the human 
heart, far from feeling remorse at a life of professional 
rapine and slaughter, almost the last words of the brave 
warrior were in proud commendation of his own deeds. 
“Be valiant like me,” he said to his brothers, “and 
remember that ye are now the heirs to the Humbler of 
Apulia, Tuscany, and La Marca.”^ 

1 “ Pregovi che vi amiate e siate valorosi al mondo, come fui io, 
che mi feci fare obbedienza a la Puglia, Toscana, e a La Marca.” — 
Vita di Cola di Rienzi, lib. ii. cap. 22. (I pray you love one an- 
other, and be valorous as was I, who made Apulia, Tuscany, and 
La Marca own obedience to me.) 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TKIBUNES. 305 


This confidence in himself continued at the scaffold. 
“ I die,” he said, addressing the Romans, — “I die con- 
tented, since my bones shall rest in the Holy City of 
St. Peter and St. Paul, and the soldier of Christ shall 
have the burial-place of the Apostles. But I die 
unjustly. My wealth is my crime, — the poverty of 
your state my accuser. Senator of Rome, thou mayst 
envy my last hour, — men like Walter de Montreal 
perish not unavenged.” So saying, he turned to the 
east, murmured a brief prayer, knelt down deliberately, 
and said as to himself, “ Rome guard my ashes ! Earth 
my memory ! Eate my revenge ; and, now. Heaven 
receive my soul ! Strike ! ” At the first blow the 
head was severed from the body. 

His treason but imperfectly known, the fear of him 
forgotten, all that remained of the recollection of Walter 
de Montreal ^ in Rome was admiration for his heroism, 
and compassion for his end. The fate of Pandulfo di 
Guido, which followed some days afterwards, excited 
a yet deeper though more quiet sentiment against the 
Senator. He was once Rienzi’s friend ! ” said one 
man ; “ He was an honest, upright citizen ! ” muttered 
another ; “ He was an advocate of the people ! ” growled 
Cecco del Vecchio. But the Senator had wound himself 
up to a resolve to be infiexibly just, and to regard every 
peril to Rome as became a Roman. Rienzi remembered 
that he had never confided but he had been betrayed; 

1 The military renown and bold exploits of Montreal are acknowl- 
edged by all the Italian authorities. One of them declares that, 
since the time of Caesar, Italy had never known so great a captain. 
The biographer of Rienzi, forgetting all the offences of the splen- 
did and knightly robber, seems to feel only commiseration for his 
fate. He informs us, moreover, that at Tivoli one of his servants 
(perhaps our friend, Rodolph of Saxony), hearing his death, died of 
grief the following day. 

VOL. II. — 20 


306 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


he had never forgiven hut to sharpen enmity. He was 
amidst a ferocious people, uncertain friends, wily ene- 
mies; and misplaced mercy would be hut a premium to 
conspiracy. Yet the struggle he underwent was visible 
in the hysterical emotions he betrayed. He now wept 
bitterly, now laughed wildly. “ Can I never again 
have the luxury to forgive ? ” said he. The coarse 
spectators of that passion deemed it, — some imbe- 
cility, some hypocrisy. But the execution produced 
the momentary effect intended. All sedition ceased, 
terror crept throughout the city , — order and peace 
rose to the surface; but beneath, in the strong expres- 
sion of a contemporaneous writer, “ Lo mormorito 
quetamente suonava. ” ^ 

On examining dispassionately the conduct of Bienzi 
at this awful period of his life, it is scarcely possible to 
condemn it of a single error in point of policy. Cured 
of his faults, he exhibited no unnecessary ostentation, 
he indulged in no exhibitions of intoxicated pride; 
that gorgeous imagination, rather than vanity, which 
had led the Tribune into spectacle and pomp, was now 
lulled to rest by the sober memory of grave vicissitudes 
and the stern calmness of a maturer intellect. Frugal, 
provident, watchful, self-collected, “never was seen,” 
observes no partial witness, “ so extraordinary a man.” ^ 
In him was concentrated every thought for every want 
of Borne. Tndefatigahly occupied, he inspected, or- 
dained, regulated all things, — in the city, in the army, 
for peace or for war. But he was feebly supported, and 
those he employed were lukewarm and lethargic. Still 
his arms prospered. Place after place, fortress after 
fortress, yielded to the lieutenant of the Senator; and 

1 The murmur quietly sounded. 

2 Vita di Cola di Rienzi, lib. ii. cap. 23. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 307 


the cession of Palestrina itself was hourly expected. 
His art and address were always strikingly exhibited 
in difficult situations, and the reader cannot fail to 
have noticed how conspicuously they were displayed 
in delivering himself from the iron tutelage of his 
foreign mercenaries. Montreal executed, his brothers 
imprisoned (though their lives were spared), a fear 
that induced respect was stricken into the breasts of 
those bandit soldiers. Removed from Rome, and, 
under Annibaldi, engaged against the barons, constant 
action and constant success withheld those necessary 
fiends from falling on their master; while Rienzi, will- 
ing to yield to the natural antipathy of the Romans, 
thus kept the Northmen from all contact with the city, 
and, as he boasted, was the only chief in Italy who 
reigned in his palace guarded only by his citizens. 

Despite his perilous situation, despite his sus- 
picions and his fears, no wanton cruelty stained his 
stern justice, — Montreal and Pandulfo di Guido were 
the only state victims he demanded. If, according to 
the dark Machiavelism of Italian wisdom, the death of 
those enemies was impolitic, it was not in the act, but 
the mode of doing it. A prince of Bologna or of Milan 
would have avoided the sympathy excited by the scaf- 
fold, and the drug or the dagger would have been the 
safer substitute for the axe. But with all his faults, 
real and imputed, no single act of that foul and mur- 
derous policy which made the science of the more 
fortunate princes of Italy ever advanced the ambition 
or promoted the security of the Last of the Roman 
Tribunes. Whatever his errors, he lived and died as 
became a man who dreamed the vain but glorious dream 
that in a corrupt and dastard populace he could revive 
the genius of the old republic. 


308 RIENZl, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

Of all who attended on the Senator, the most assidu* 
ous and the most honored was still Angelo Villani. 
Promoted to a high civil station, Kienzi felt it as a 
return of youth to find one person entitled to his grati- 
tude; he loved and confided in the youth as a son. 
Villani was never absent from his side, except in inter- 
course with the various popular leaders in the various 
quarters of the city; and in this intercourse his zeal was 
indefatigable, — it seemed even to prey upon his health; 
and Kienzi chid him fondly, whenever, starting from 
his own reveries, he beheld the abstracted eye and the 
livid paleness which had succeeded the sparkle and 
bloom of youth. 

Such chiding the young man answered only by the 
same unvarying words, — 

“ Senator, I have a great trust to fulfil; ” and at these 
words he smiled. 

One day Villani, while with the Senator, said rather 
abruptly, “ Do you remember, my lord, that before 
Viterbo I acquitted myself so in arms that even the 
Cardinal d’Albornoz was pleased to notice me?” 

“ I remember your valor well, Angelo; but why the 
question ? ” 

“My lord, Bellini, the captain of the guard of the 
Capitol, is dangerously ill.” 

“I know it.” 

“ Whom can my lord trust at the post ? ” 

“Why, the lieutenant?” 

“ What ! — a soldier that has served under the Orsini ! ” 

“ True. Well ! there is Tommaso Filangieri.” 

“An excellent man; but is he not kin by blood to 
Pandulfo di Guido ? ” 

“Ay, is he so? It must be thought of. Hast 
thou any friend to name ? ” said the Senator, smiling, 
“ Methinks thy cavils point that way.” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 309 


“My lord,” replied Villani, coloring, “I am too 
young, perhaps; but the post is one that demands 
fidelity more than it does years. Shall I own it? — 
My tastes are rather to serve thee with my sword than 
with my pen.” 

“Wilt thou, indeed, accept the office? It is of less 
dignity and emolument than the one you hold; and you 
are full young to lead these stubborn spirits.” 

“ Senator, I led taller men than they are to the assault 
at Viterbo. But be it as seems best to your superior 
wisdom. Whatever you do, I pray you to be cautious. 
If you select a traitor to the command of the Capitol 
guard ! — I tremble at the thought ! ” 

“ By my faith, thou dost turn pale at it, dear hoy ; 
thy affection is a sweet drop in a hitter draught. Whom 
can I choose better than thee? — thou shalt have the 
post, at least during Bellini’s illness. I will attend 
to it to-day. The business, too, will less fatigue thy 
young mind than that which now employs thee. Thou 
art over-labored in our cause.” 

“ Senator, I can but repeat my usual answer, — I have 
a great trust to fulfil I ” 


310 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTER VII. 

The Tax. 

These formidable conspiracies quelled, the barons 
nearly subdued, and three parts of the papal territory 
re-united to Rome, Rienzi now deemed he might safely 
execute one of his favorite projects for the preservation 
of the liberties of his native city; and this was to raise 
and organize in each quarter of Rome a Roman Legion. 
Armed in the defence of their own institutions, he thus 
trusted to establish amongst her own citizens the only 
soldiery requisite for Rome. 

But so base were the tools with which this great man 
was condemned to work out his noble schemes, that 
none could be found to serve their own country with- 
out a pay equal to that demanded by foreign hirelings. 
With the insolence so peculiar to a race that has once 
been great, each Roman said , “ Am I not better than a 
German? Pay me, then, accordingly.” 

The Senator smothered his disgust, — he had learned 
at last to know that the age of the Catos was no more. 
Prom a daring enthusiast, experience had converted him 
into a practical statesman. The legions were necessary 
to Rome: they were formed, — gallant their appearance 
and faultless their caparisons. How were they to be 
paid? There was but one means to maintain Rome, — 
Rome must be taxed. A gabelle was put upon wine 
and salt. 

The proclamation ran thus : — 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF 'THE TRIBUNES. 311 

“ Romans ! raised to the rank of your Senator, my whole 
thought has been for your liberties and welfare; already 
treason defeated in the city, our banners triumphant without, 
attest the favor with which the Deity regards men who seek 
to unite liberty with law. Let us set an example to Italy 
and the world ! Let us prove that the Roman sword can 
guard the Roman Forum! In each rione of the city is pro- 
vided a legion of the citizens, collected from the traders and 
artisans of the town; they allege that they cannot leave their 
callings without remuneration. Your Senator calls upon you 
willingly to assist in your own defence. He has given you 
liberty; he has restored to you peace; your oppressors are 
scattered over the earth. He asks you now to preserve the 
treasures you have gained. To be free, you must sacrifice 
something; for freedom, what sacrifice too great! Confident 
of your support, I at length, for the first time, exert the right 
intrusted to me by office, — and for Rome’s salvation I tax 
the Romans ! ” 

Then followed the announcement of the gabelle. 

The proclamation was set up in the public thorough- 
fares. Round one of the placards a crowd assembled. 
Their gestures were vehement and unguarded; their 
eyes sparkled, — they conversed low but eagerly. 

“ He dares to tax us, then ! Why, the barons or the 
pope could not do more than that ! ” 

“Shame! shame ! ’" cried a gaunt female; “we, who 
were his friends ! How are our little ones to get 
bread 1 ” 

“ He should have seized the pope’s money! ” quoth 
an honest wine-vendor. 

“ Ah ! Pandulfo di Guido would have maintained an 
army at his own cost. He was a rich man. What 
insolence in the innkeepers son to be a Senator!” 

“ We are not Romans if we sujBfer this ! ” said a 
deserter from Palestrina. 


312 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


Fellow-citizens! ” exclaimed gruffly a tall man, who 
had hitherto been making a clerk read to him the par- 
ticulars of the tax imposed, and whose heavy brain at 
length understood that wine was to be made dearer, — 
“ fellow-citizens, we must have a new revolution ! This 
is indeed gratitude ! What have we benefited by restor- 
ing this man 1 Are we always to be ground to the dust ? 
To pay , pay , pay ! Is that all we are fit for ? ” 

“ Hark to Cecco del Vecchio ! ” 

“No, no; not now,” growled the smith. “To-night 
the artificers have a special meeting. We’ll see, — 
we T1 see ! ” 

A young man muffled in a cloak, who had not been 
before observed, touched the smith. 

“Whoever storms the Capitol the day after to-morrow 
at the dawn, ” he whispered, “ shall find the guards 
absent ! ” 

He was gone before the smith could look round. 

The same night Rienzi , retiring to rest, said to Angelo 
Villani, “ A bold but necessary measure this of mine! 
How do the people take it?” 

“ They murmur a little, but seem to recognize the 
necessity. Cecco del Vecchio was the loudest grum- 
bler, but is now the loudest approver.” 

“ The man is rough, he once deserted me; but 
then that fatal excommunication ! He and the Romans 
learned a bitter lesson in that desertion, and experience 
has, I trust, taught them to be honest. Well, if this 
tax be raised quietly, in two years Rome will be again 
the Queen of Italy, — her army manned, her republic 
formed ; and then — then — ” 

“ Then, what. Senator? ” 

“ Why, then, my Angelo, Cola di Rienzi may die in 
peace ! There is a want which a profound experience of 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TKIBUNES. 313 

power and pomp brings at last to us, — a want gnawing 
as that of hunger, wearing as that of sleep ! — my 
Angelo^ it is the want to die ! ” 

“My lord, I would give this right hand,” cried 
Villani, earnestly, “ to hear you say you were attached 
to life!” 

“ You are a good youth, Angelo ! ” said Rienzi, as he 
passed to Nina’s chamber; and in her smile and wistful 
tenderness, forgot for a while — that he was a great 
man ! 


314 EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

The Threshold of the Event. 

The next morning the Senator of Rome held high court 
in the Capitol. From Florence, from Padua, from Pisa, 
even from Milan (the dominion of the Visconti) , from 
Genoa, from Naples, came ambassadors to welcome his 
return, or to thank him for having freed Italy from 
the freebooter De Montreal. Venice alone, who held 
in her pay the Grand Company, stood aloof. Never 
had Rienzi seemed more prosperous and more powerful, 
and never had he exhibited a more easy and cheerful 
majesty of demeanor. 

Scarce was the audience over, when a messenger 
arrived from Palestrina. The town had surrendered, 
the Colonna had departed, and the standard of the 
Senator waved from the walls of the last hold of the 
rebellious barons. Rome might now at length consider 
herself free, and not a foe seemed left to menace the 
repose of Rienzi. 

The court dissolved. The Senator, elated and joyous, 
repaired towards his private apartments, previous to the 
banquet given to the ambassadors. Villani met him 
with his wonted sombre aspect. 

“No sadness to-day, my Angelo,” said the Senator, 
gayly ; “ Palestrina is ours ! ” 

“ I am glad to hear such news, and to see my lord of 
so fair a mien,” answered Angelo. “ Does he not now 
desire life ? ” 


RIENZI, THE LAST OV THE TRIBUNES. 315 

“Till Eoman virtue revives, perhaps, — yes! But 
thus are we fools of Fortune, — to-day glad, to-morrow 
dejected!” 

“To-morrow,” repeated Villani, mechanically; “ay, 
— to-morrow perhaps dejected!” 

“Thou playest with my words, boy,” said Eienzi, 
half angrily, as he turned away. 

But Villani heeded not the displeasure of his lord. 

The banquet was thronged and brilliant; and Eienzi 
that day, without an effort, played the courteous host. 

Milanese, Paduan, Pisan, Neapolitan, vied with each 
other in attracting the smiles of the potent Senator. 
Prodigal were their compliments, lavish their prom- 
ises of support. No monarch in Italy seemed more 
securely throned. 

The banquet was over (as usual on state occasions) 
at an early hour; and Eienzi, somewhat heated with 
wine, strolled forth alone from the Capitol. Bending 
his solitary steps towards the Palatine, he saw the pale 
and veil-like mists that succeed the sunset gather over 
the wild grass which waves above the palace of the 
Caesars. On a mound of ruins (column and arch over- 
thrown) he stood, with folded arms, musing and intent. 
In the distance lay the melancholy tombs of the Cam- 
pagna, and the circling hills, crested with the purple 
hues soon to melt beneath the starlight. Not a breeze 
stirred the dark cypress and unwaving pine. There 
was something awful in the stillness of the skies, hush- 
ing the desolate grandeur of the earth below. Many 
and mingled were the thoughts that swept over Eienzi ^s 
breast; memory was busy at his heart. How often, in 
his youth, had he trodden the same spot ! — what visions 
had he nursed, what hopes conceived ! In the tur- 
bulence of his later life Memory had long slept; but 


316 RIENZT, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


at that hour she reasserted her shadowy reign with a 
despotism that seemed prophetic. He was wandering, 
a boy, with his young brother, hand in hand, by the 
river-side at eve: anon he saw a pale face and gory 
side, and once more uttered his imprecations of revenge ! 
His first successes, his virgin triumphs, his secret love, 
his fame, his power, his reverses, the hermitage of 
Maiella, the dungeon of Avignon, the triumphal return 
to Kome, — all swept across his breast with a distinct- 
ness as if he were living those scenes again ! And 
now / — he shrunk from the 'present ^ and descended the 
hill. The moon, already risen, shed her light over the 
Forum, as he passed through its mingled ruins. By 
the temple of Jupiter two figures suddenly emerged; 
the moonlight fell upon their faces, and Kienzi recog- 
nized Cecco del Vecchio and Angelo Villani. They 
saw him not; but, eagerly conversing, disappeared by 
the arch of Trajan. 

“Villani! ever active in my service!” thought the 
Senator ; “ methinks this morning I spoke to him 
harshly, — it was churlish in me!” 

He re-entered the place of the Capitol, — he stood by 
the staircase of the Lion ; there was a red stain upon the 
pavement, unobliterated since Montreal’s execution, 
and the Senator drew himself aside with an inward 
shudder. Was it the ghastly and spectral light of the 
moon, or did the face of that old Egyptian monster 
wear an aspect that was as of life? The stony eye- 
balls seemed bent upon him with a malignant scowl; 
and as he passed on, and looked behind, they ap- 
peared almost preternaturally to follow his steps. A 
chill, he knew not why, sunk into his heart. He 
hastened to regain his palace. The sentinels made way 
for him. 


KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 317 


“ Senator,” said one of them, doubtingly, " Messere 
Angelo Villani is our new captain, — we are to obey bis 
orders ? ” 

" Assuredly, ” returned the Senator, passing on. The 
man lingered uneasily as if he would have spoken, but 
E-ienzi observed it not. Seeking his chamber, he found 
Nina and Irene waiting for him. His heart yearned to 
his wife. Care and toil had of late driven her from his 
thoughts, and he felt it remorsefully, as he gazed upon 
her noble face, softened by the solicitude of untiring 
and anxious love. 

“ Sweetest,” said he, winding his arms around her 
tenderly, thy lips never chide me, but thine eyes 
sometimes do ! We have been apart too long. Brighter 
days dawn upon us when I shall have leisure to thank 
thee for all thy care. And you, my fair sister, you 
smile on me! — ah, you have heard that your lover, 
ere this, is released by the cession of Palestrina, and 
to-morrow ^s sun will see him at your feet. Despite all 
the cares of the day, I remembered thee, my Irene, and 
sent a messenger to bring back the blush to that pale 
cheek. Come, come, we shall be happy again!” And 
with that domestic fondness common to him, when 
harsher thoughts permitted, he sat himself beside the 
two persons dearest to his hearth and heart. 

“ So happy, — if we could have many hours like 
this!” murmured Nina, sinking on his breast. “Yet 
sometimes I wish — ” 

“ And I too,” interrupted Rienzi; “for I read thy 
woman’s thought, — I too sometimes wish that fate had 
placed us in the lowlier valleys of life! But it may 
come yet! Irene wedded to Adrian, Rome married to 
Liberty, — and then, Nina, methinks you and I would 
find some quiet hermitage, and talk over old gauds and 


318 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

triumphs as of a summer’s dream. Beautiful, kiss me! 
Couldst thou resign these pomps 1” 

“ Bor a desert with thee^ Cola! ” 

** Let me reflect,” resumed Rienzi; “ is not to-day the 
seventh of October? Yes! on the seventh, be it noted, 
my foes yielded to my power! Seven! my fated number, 
whether ominous of good or evil! Seven months did I 
reign as Tribune, — seven ^ years was I absent as an 
exile; to-morrow, that sees me without an enemy, com- 
pletes my seventh week of return! ” 

“ And seven was the number of the crowns the Roman 
Convents and the Roman Council awarded thee, after 
the ceremony which gave thee the knighthood of the 
Santo Spirito ! ^ sdXdi Nina; adding, with woman’s 
tender wit, “ the brightest association of all ! ” 

“ Follies seem these thoughts to others, and to phi- 
losophy, in truth, they are so,” said Rienzi; “but all 
my life long, omen and type and shadow have linked 
themselves to action and event, and the atmosphere of 
other men hath not been mine. Life itself a riddle, 
why should riddles amaze us ? The Future ! — what 
mystery in the very word! Had we lived all through 
the past, since Time was, our profoundest experience of 

1 There was the lapse of one year between the release of Rienzi 
from Avignon and his triumphal return to Rome, — a year chiefly 
spent in the campaign of Albornoz. 

2 This superstition had an excuse in strange historical coinci- 
dences ; and the number seven was indeed to Rienzi what the 3d of 
September was to Cromwell. The ceremony of the seven crowns 
which he received after his knighthood, on the nature of which 
ridiculous ignorance has been shown by many recent writers, was, in 
fact, principally a religious and typical donation (symbolical of the 
gifts of the Holy Spirit) conferred by the heads of convents ; and 
that part of the ceremony which was political was republican, not 
regal. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 319 

a thousand ages could not give us a guess of the events 
that wait the Yery moment we are about to enter! Thus 
deserted by Keason, what wonder that we recur to the 
Imagination, on which, by dream and symbol, God 
sometimes paints the likeness of things to come ? Who 
can endure to leave the future all unguessed, and sit 
tamely down to groan under the fardel of the present ? 
No, no! that which the foolish-wise call Fanaticism 
belongs to the same part of us as Hope. Each but 
carries us onward, — from a barren strand to a glorious 
if unbounded sea. Each is the yearning for the Great 
Beyond, which attests our immortality. Each has its 
visions and chimeras, — some false, but some true! 
Verily, a man who becomes great is often but made so 
by a kind of sorcery in his own soul, — a Pythia which 
prophesies that he shall be great, — and so renders the 
life one effort to fulfil the warning! Is this folly? — it 
were so, if all things stopped at the grave ! But perhaps 
the very sharpening and exercising and elevating the 
faculties here, though but for a bootless end on earth, 
may be designed to fit the soul, thus quickened and 
ennobled, to some high destiny beyond the earth! Who 
can tell ? — not I ! Let us pray ! '' 

While the Senator was thus employed. Pome in her 
various quarters presented less holy and quiet scenes. 

In the fortress of the Orsini lights flitted to and fro, 
through the gratings of the great court. Angelo Villani 
might be seen stealing from the postern gate. Another 
hour, and the moon was high in heaven; toward the 
ruins of the Colosseum, men, whose dress bespoke them 
of the lowest rank, were seen creeping from lanes and 
alleys, two by two; from these ruins glided again the 
form of the son of Montreal. Later yet; the moon is 
sinking, a gray light breaking in the east, and the 


320 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

gates of Eome, by St. John of Lateran, are open! 
Villani is conversing with the sentries ! The moon 
has set, — the mountains are dim with a mournful 
and chilling haze. Villani is before the palace of 
the Capitol, — the soldier there! Where are the 
Roman legions that were to guard alike the freedom 
and the deliverer of Rome? 








RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 321 


CHAPTER THE LAST. 

The Close of the Chase. 

It was the morning of the 8th of October, 1354. 
Rienzi, who rose betimes, stirred restlessly in his bed. 
“ It is yet early,” he said to Nina, whose soft arm was 
round his neck ; “ none of my people seem to be astir. 
Howbeit my day begins before theirs.'* 

“ Rest yet, my Cola ; you want sleep. ” 

“ No ; I feel feverish, and this old pain in the side 
torments me. I have letters to write.” 

“ Let me he your secretary, dearest,” said Nina. 

Rienzi smiled affectionately as he rose ; he repaired to 
his closet adjoining his sleeping-apartment, and used the 
hath, as was his wont. Then dressing himself he re- 
turned to Nina, who, already loosely robed, sat by the 
writing-table, ready for her office of love. 

“ How still are all things ! ” said Rienzi. “ What a 
cool and delicious prelude, in these early hours, to the 
toilsome day I ” 

Leaning over his wife, he then dictated different let- 
ters, interrupting the task at times by such observations 
as crossed his mind. 

“ So, now to Annibaldi ! By the way, young Adrian 
should join us to-day; how I rejoice for Irene’s sake! ” 

“ Dear sister, — yes ! she loves — if any. Cola, can so 
love — as we do.” 

**Well, but to your task, my fair scribe. Ha! what 
noise is that? I hear an armed step; the stairs creak, — 
some one shouts my name.” 

VOL. II. — 21 


322 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


Kienzi flew to his sword ! The door was thrown rudely 
open, and a figure in complete armor appeared within the 
chamber. 

How ! What means this ? ” said E/ienzi, standing 
before Nina, with his drawn sword. 

The intruder lifted his visor, — it was Adrian Colonna. 

“ Fly, Eienzi ! — hasten, signora ! Thank Heaven, I 
can save ye yet! Myself and train released by the 
capture of Palestrina, the pain of my wound detained 
me last night at Tivoli. The town was filled with 
armed men, — not thine^ Senator. I heard rumors that 
alarmed me. I resolved to proceed onward, — I reached 
Kome, the gates of the city were wide open! ” 

“ How % ” 

“ Your guard gone. Presently I came upon a band of 
the retainers of the Savelli. My insignia, as a Colonna, 
misled them. I learned that this very hour some of 
your enemies are within the city, the rest are on their 
march, — the people themselves arm against you. In 
the obscurer streets I passed through, the mob were 
already forming. They took me for thy foe, and 
shouted. I came hither, — thy sentries have vanished. 
The private door below is unbarred and open. Not a 
soul seems left in thy palace. Haste, fly, save thy- 
self ! Where is Irene ? ” 

“ The Capitol deserted ! — impossible ! ” cried Eienzi. 
He strode across the chambers to the anteroom, where 
his night-guard usually waited, — it was empty! He 
passed hastily to Villani’s room, — it was untenanted! 
He would have passed farther, but the doors were 
secured without. It was evident that all egress had 
been cut off, save by the private door below, and that 
had been left open to admit his murderers. 

He returned to his room; Nina had already gone to 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 323 

rouse and prepare Irene, whose chamber was on the 
other side, within one of their own. 

“Quick, Senator!” said Adrian. “ Methinks there is 
yet time. We must make across to the Tiber. I have 
stationed my faithful squires and Northmen there. A 
boat waits us.” 

“ Hark ! ” interrupted Hienzi, whose senses had of late 
been preternaturally quickened. “ I hear a distant shout, 
— a familiar shout, ‘Viva ’1 Popolo ! ’ Why, so say I! 
These must be friends. ” 

“ Deceive not thyself ; thou hast scarce a friend at 
Rome. ” 

“ Hist ! ” said Rienzi, in a whisper ; “ save Nina, save 
Irene. I cannot accompany thee. ” 

“ Art thou mad ? ” 

“ No, but fearless. Besides, did I accompany, I might 
but destroy you all. Were I found with you, you would 
be massacred with me. Without *me ye are safe. Yes, 
even the Senator’s wife and sister have provoked no re- 
venge. Save them, noble Colonna! Cola di Rienzi puts 
his trust in God alone ! ” 

By this time Nina had returned; Irene with her. 
Afar was heard the tramp — steady, slow, gathering — 
of the fatal multitude. 

“ Now, Cola,” said Nina, with a bold and cheerful air; 
and she took her husband’s arm, while Adrian had 
already found his charge in Irene. 

“ Yes, now, Nina ! ” said Rienzi; “ at length we part! 
If this is my last hour, — m my last hour I pray God to 
bless and shield thee ! for verily thou hast been my ex- 
ceeding solace; provident as a parent, tender as a child, 
the smile of my hearth, the — the — ” 

Rienzi was almost unmanned. Emotions, deep, con- 
flicting, unspeakably fond and grateful, literally choked 
his speech. 


324 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


“ What ! ” cried Nina, clinging to his breast, and part- 
ing her hair from her eyes, as she sought his averted 
face. “Part! — never! This is my place, — all Rome 
shall not tear me from it! ” 

Adrian, in despair, seized her hand, and attempted to 
drag her thence. 

“ Touch me not, sir ! ” said Nina, waving her arm 
with angry majesty, while her eyes sparkled as a lioness 
whom the huntsmen would sever from her young. “ I 
am the wife of Cola di Rienzi, the great Senator of Rome, 
and by his side will I live and die ! ” 

“ Take her hence ; quick ! quick ! I hear the crowd 
advancing. ” 

Irene tore herself from Adrian, and fell at the feet of 
Rienzi, — she clasped his knees. 

“ Come, my brother, come ! Why lose these precious 
moments? Rome forbids you to cast away a life in 
which her very self is bound up. ” 

“ Right, Irene ; Rome is bound up with me, and we 
will rise or fall together! No more! ” 

“ You destroy us all ! ” said Adrian, with generous and 
impatient warmth. “ A few minutes more and we are 

lost. Rash man! it is not to fall by an infuriated 

mob that you have been preserved from so many 
dangers. ” 

“ I believe it ! ” said the Senator, as his tall form 

seemed to dilate as with the greatness of his own soul. 

“ I shall triumph yet ! Never shall mine enemies — 
never shall posterity say that a second time Rienzi 
abandoned Rome ! Hark ! ‘ Viva ’1 Popolo ! ’ still the 
cry of ‘The People.’ That cry scares none but 
tyrants ! I shall triumph and survive ! ” 

“ And I with thee ! ” said Nina, firmly. Rienzi 
paused a moment, gazed on his wife, passionately clasped 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 325 

her to his heart, kissed her again and again, and then 
said, “Nina, I command thee, — go! ” 

“Never!” 

He paused. Irene’s face, drowned in tears, met his 
eyes. 

“We will all perish with you, ” said his sister ; “ you 
only, Adrian, you leave us! ” 

“ Be it so, ” said the knight, sadly ; “ we will all 
remain ; ” and he desisted at once from further effort. 

There was a dead but short pause, broken but by a 
convulsive sob from Irene. The tramp of the raging 
thousands sounded fearfully distinct. Bienzi seemed 
lost in thought; then lifting his head, he said calmly: 
“ Ye have triumphed: I join ye, — I but collect these 
papers, and follow you. Quick, Adrian, save them ! ” 
and he pointed meaningly to Nina. 

Waiting no other hint, the young Colonna seized Nina 
in his strong grasp; with his left hand he supported 
Irene, who with terror and excitement was almost insen- 
sible. Bienzi relieved him of the lighter load, — he 
took his sister in his arms, and descended the winding 
stairs. Nina remained passive ; she heard her husband's 
step behind, it was enough for her, — she but turned 
once to thank him with her eyes. A tall Northman 
clad in armor stood at the open door. Bienzi placed 
Irene, now perfectly lifeless, in the soldier’s arms, and 
kissed her pale cheek in silence. 

“ Quick, my lord ! ” said the Northman ; “ on all sides 
they come ! ” So saying, he bounded down the de- 
scent with his burden. Adrian followed with Nina; 
the Senator paused one moment, turned back, and was 
in his room ere Adrian was aware that he had vanished^ 
Hastily he drew the coverlid from his bed, fastened 
it to the casement bars, and by its aid dropped (at a 


326 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


distance of several feet) into the balcony below. “ I 
will not die like a rat, ” said he, “ in the trap they have 
set for me ! The whole crowd shall, at least, see and 
hear me.” 

This was the work of a moment. 

Meanwhile Nina, had scarcely proceeded six paces, 
before she discovered that she was alone with Adrian. 

“ Ha, Cola ! ” she cried, “ where is he ? he has 
gone! ” 

“ Take heart, lady, he has returned but for some 
secret papers he has forgotten. He will follow us 
anon. ” 

“ Let us wait then. ” 

“ Lady, ” said Adrian, grinding his teeth, “ hear you 
not the crowd ? — On, on 1 ” and he flew with a swifter 
step. Nina struggled in his grasp, — Love gave her the 
strength of despair. With a wild laugh she broke 
from him. She flew back; the door was closed but 
unbarred; her trembling hands lingered a moment 
round the spring. She opened it, drew the heavy 
bolt across the panels, and frustrated all attempt from 
Adrian to regain her. She was on the stairs, — she was 
in the room. Rienzi was gone ! She fled, shrieking 
his name, through the state chambers, — all was deso- 
late. She found the doors opening on the various 
passages that admitted to the rooms below barred 
without. Breathless and gasping, she returned to the 
chamber. She hurried to the casement; she perceived 
the method by which he had descended below, — her 
brave heart told her of his brave design; she saw 
they were separated. “ But the same roof holds us, ” 
she cried joyously, “ and our fate shall be the same ! ” 
With that thought she sank in mute patience on the 
floor. 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 327 

Forming the generous resolve not to abandon the 
faithful and devoted pair without another effort, Adrian 
had followed Nina; but too late, — the door was closed 
against his efforts. The crowd marched on: he heard 
their cry change on a sudden, — it was no longer “ Live 
THE People! ” hut, “ Death to the Traitor! ” His 
attendant had already disappeared, and, waking now 
only to the danger of Irene, the Colonna in bitter grief 
turned away, lightly sped down the descent, and hastened 
to the river-side, where a boat and his band awaited 
him. 

The balcony on which Pienzi had alighted was that 
from which he had been accustomed to address the 
people; it communicated with a vast hall used on 
solemn occasions for state festivals, and on either side 
were square projecting towers whose grated casements 
looked into the balcony. One of these towers was 
devoted to the armory; the other contained the prison 
of Brettone, the brother of Montreal. Beyond the 
latter tower was the general prison of the Capitol; 
for then the prison and the palace were in awful 
neighborhood ! 

The windows of the hall were yet open, and Bienzi 
passed into it from the balcony ; the witness of the yes- 
terday ’s banquet was still there, — the wine, yet undried, 
crimsoned the floor, and goblets of gold and silver shone 
from the recesses. He proceeded at once to the armory, 
and selected from the various suits that which he himself 
had worn when, nearly eight years ago, he had chased 
the barons from the gates of Borne. He arrayed himself 
in the mail, leaving only his head uncovered; and then 
taking in his right hand, from the wall, the great 
gonfalon of Borne, returned once more to the hall. Not 
a man encountered him. In that vast building, save 


328 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 


the prisoners and the faithful Nina, whose presence he 
knew not of, the Senator was alone. 

On they came, no longer in measured order, as stream 
after stream, — from lane, from alley, from palace, and 
from hovel, — the raging sea received new additions. 
On they came, — their passions excited by their num- 
bers: women and men, children and malignant age, — 
in all the awful array of aroused, released, unresisted 
physical strength and brutal wrath. “ Death to the 
traitor, death to the tyrant, death to him who has 
taxed the people ! ” — “ Mora 7 traditore che ha fatta 
la gabella ! — Mora ! ” Such was the cry of the peo- 
ple, such the crime of the Senator! They broke over 
the low palisades of the Capitol, they filled with one 
sudden rush the vast space, — a moment before so deso- 
late, now swarming with human beings athirst for 
blood! 

Suddenly came a dead silence, and on the balcony 
above stood E-ienzi; his head was bared, and the morn- 
ing sun shone over that lordly brow, and the hair 
grown gray before its time in the service of that mad- 
dening multitude. Pale and erect he stood, — neither 
fear nor anger nor menace, but deep grief and high 
resolve upon his features! A momentary shame, a 
momentary awe seized the crowd. 

He pointed to the gonfalon, wrought with the republi- 
can motto and arms of Pome, and thus he began, — 

“ I too am a Eoman and a citizen ; hear me ! ” 

“ Hear him not ! hear him not ! his false tongue can 
charm away our senses ! ” cried a voice louder than his 
own; and Eienzi recognized Cecco del Vecchio. 

“ Hear him not ! down with the tyrant ! ” cried a 
more shrill and youthful tone; and by the side of the 
artisan stood Angelo Villani. 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 329 


‘‘ Hear him not ! death to the death-giver ! ” cried a 
voice close at hand ; and from the grating of the neigh- 
boring prison glared near upon him, as the eye of a 
tiger, the vengeful gaze of the brother of Montreal. 

Then from earth to heaven rose the roar, “ Down with 
the tyrant, — down with him who taxed the people ! ” 

A shower of stones rattled on the mail of the Senator; 
still he stirred not. No changing muscle betokened 
fear. His persuasion of his own wonderful powers of 
eloquence, if he could but be heard, inspired him yet 
with hope; he stood collected in his own indignant but 
determined thoughts. But the knowledge of that very 
eloquence was now his deadliest foe. The leaders of 
the multitude trembled lest he should be heard; “and 
doubtless^ ” says the contemporaneous biographer, “ had 
he hut spoken he would have changed them ally and 
the work been marred.^' 

The soldiers of the barons had already mixed them- 
selves with the throng, — more deadly weapons than 
stones aided the wrath of the multitude, — darts and 
arrows darkened the air; and now a voice was heard 
shrieking, “ Way for the torches ! ” And red in the 
sunlight the torches tossed and waved, and danced to 
and fro, above the heads of the crowd, as if the fiends 
were let loose amongst the mob ! And what place in 
hell hath fiends like those a mad mob can furnish? 
Straw and wood and litter were piled hastily round 
the great doors of the Capitol, and the smoke curled 
suddenly up, beating back the rush of the assailants. 

Bienzi was no longer visible; an arrow had pierced 
his hand, — the right hand that supported the flag of 
Rome, the right hand that had given a constitution 
to the republic. He retired from the storm into the 
desolate hall. 


330 KIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TKIBUNES. 


He sat down; and tears, springing from no weak 
and woman source, but tears from the loftiest fountain 
of emotion, — tears that befit a warrior when his own 
troops desert him, a patriot when his countrymen rush 
to their own doom, a father when his children rebel 
against his love, — tears such as these forced themselves 
from his eyes and relieved, but they changed his heart ! 

“ Enough, enough ! ” he said, presently rising and 
dashing the drops scornfully away ; “ I have risked, 
dared, toiled enough for this dastard and degenerate 
race. I will yet baffle their malice, — I renounce the 
thought of which they are so little worthy ! Let Home 
perish ! I feel, at least, that I am nobler than my 
country ! She deserves not so high a sacrifice ! ” 

With that feeling Death lost all the nobleness of 
aspect it had before presented to him; and he resolved, 
in very scorn of his ungrateful foes, in very defeat of 
their inhuman wrath, to make one effort for his life! 
He divested himself of his glittering arms; his address, 
his dexterity, his craft, returned to him. His active 
mind ran over the chances of disguise, of escape; he 
left the hall, — passed through the humbler rooms 
devoted to the servitors and menials; found in one of 
them a coarse working garb, — indued himself with it; 
placed upon his head some of the draperies and furni- 
ture of the palace, as if escaping with them; and said, 
with his old fantastico riso,'^ “ When all other friends 
desert me, I may well forsake myself!” With that 
he awaited his occasion. 

Meanwhile the flames burnt fierce and fast; the outer 
door below was already consumed; from the apartment 
he had deserted the fire burst out in volleys of smoke, 
the wood crackled, the lead melted, with a crash fell 
^ Fantastic smile or laugh. 


EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 331 


the severed gates, — the dreadful entrance was open to 
all the multitude; the proud Capitol of the Caesars was 
already tottering to its fall! Now was the time! He 
passed the flaming door, the smouldering threshold; he 
passed the outer gate unscathed, — he was in the middle 
of the crowd. “Plenty of pillage within,” he said to 
the bystanders, in the Roman patoisy his face concealed 
by his load, — “ Suso, suso a gliu traditore ! ” ^ The 
mob rushed past him : he went on, — he gained the last 
stair descending into the open streets ; he was at the last 
gate, — liberty and life were before him. 

A soldier (one of his own) seized him. “Pass not! 
Whither goest thou ? ” 

“ Beware lest the Senator escape disguised ! ” cried a 
voice behind, — it was Yillani’s. The concealing load 
was torn from his head, — Rienzi stood revealed ! 

“ I am the Senator ! ” he said in a loud voice. “ Who 
dare touch the Representative of the People ? ” 

The multitude were round him in an instant. Not 
led, but rather hurried and whirled along, the Senator 
was borne to the Place of the Lion. With the intense 
glare of the bursting flames, the gray image reflected a 
lurid light, and glowed (that grim and solemn monu- 
ment!) as if itself of fire! 

There arrived, the crowd gave way, terrified by the 
greatness of their victim. Silent he stood, and turned 
his face around; nor could the squalor of his garb, nor 
the terror of the hour, nor the proud grief of detection, 
abate the majesty of his mien, or re-assure the courage 
of the thousands who gathered, gazing, round him. 
The whole Capitol, wrapped in fire, lighted with ghastly 
pomp the immense multitude. Down the long vista 
of the streets extended the fiery light and the serried 
1 Down, down with the traitor ! 


332 RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

throng, till the crowd closed with the gleaming stand- 
ards of the Colonna, the Orsini, the Savelli! Her true 
tj^rants were marching into Eome ! As the sound of 
their approaching horns and trumpets broke upon the 
burning air, the mob seemed to regain their courage. 
Eienzi prepared to speak ; his first word was as the signal 
of his own death. 

“ Die, tyrant ! ” cried Cecco del Vecchio ; and he plunged 
his dagger in the Senator’s breast. 

“ Die, executioner of Montreal ! ” muttered Villani ; 
“ thus the trust is fulfilled ! ” and his was the second 
stroke. Then, as he drew back, and saw the artisan, 
in all the drunken fury of his brute passion, tossing up 
his cap, shouting aloud, and spurning the fallen lion, 
the young man gazed upon him with a look of withering 
and bitter scorn, and said, while he sheathed his blade, 
and slowly turned to quit the crowd, — 

“ Fool, miserable fool ! thou and these at least had no 
blood of kindred to avenge / ” 

They heeded not his words, — they saw him not 
depart ; for as Eienzi , without a word, without a groan, 
fell to the earth, — as the roaring waves of the multitude 
closed over him, — a voice, shrill, sharp, and wild, was 
heard above all the clamor. At the casement of the 
palace (the casement of her bridal chamber) Nina stood! 
— through the flames that burst below and around, her 
face and outstretched arms alone visible! Ere yet the 
sound of that thrilling cry passed from the air, down 
with a mighty crash thundered that whole wing of the 
Capitol, — a blackened and smouldering mass ! 

At that hour a solitary boat was gliding swiftly 
along the Tiber. Eome was at a distance, but the lurid 
glow of the conflagration cast its reflection upon the 


RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 333 

placid and glassy stream: fair beyond description was 
the landscape, soft beyond all art of painter and of 
poet the sunlight quivering over the autumnal herbage, 
and hushing into tender calm the waves of the golden 
river ! 

Adrian’s eyes were strained towards the towers of 
the Capitol, distinguished by the flames from the spires 
and domes around. Senseless, and clasped to his guar- 
dian breast, Irene was happily unconscious of the horrors 
of the time. 

“ They dare not, they dare not, ” said the brave Co- 
lonna, “touch a hair of that sacred head! If Kienzi 
fall, the liberties of Rome fall forever ! As those towers 
that surmount the flames, the pride and monument of 
Rome, he shall rise above the dangers of the hour. 
Behold, still unscathed amidst the raging element, the 
Capitol itself is his emblem ! ” 

Scarce had he spoken, when a vast volume of smoke 
obscured the fires afar off, a dull crash (deadened by 
the distance) travelled to his ear, and the next moment 
the towers on which he gazed had vanished from the 
scene, and one intense and sullen glare seemed to settle 
over the atmosphere, making all Rome itself the funeral 
pyre of The Last of the Roman Tribunes! 



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APPENDIX. 


I. 

SOME REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF RIENZI. 

The principal authority from which historians have taken their 
account of the life and times of Rienzi is a very curious biography, 
by some unknown contemporary ; and this, which is in the Roman 
patois of the time, has been rendered not quite unfamiliar to the 
Trench and English reader by the work of Pere du Cerceau, called 
“ Conjuration de Nicolas Gabrini, dit de Rienzi,” i which has at once 
pillaged and deformed the Roman biographer. The biography I 
refer to was published (and the errors of the former editions revised) 
by Muratori in his great collection ; and has lately been reprinted 
separately in an improved text, accompanied by notes of much dis- 
crimination and scholastic taste, and a comment upon that cele- 
brated poem of Petrarch, “ Spirto Gentil,” which the majority of 
Italian critics have concurred in considering addressed to Rienzi, 
in spite of the ingenious arguments to the contrary by the Abb^ 
de Sade. 

This biography has been generally lauded for its rare impartial- 
ity. And the author does, indeed, praise and blame alike with a 
most singular appearance of stolid candor. The work, in truth, 
is one of those not uncommon proofs, of which Boswell’s “Johnson ” 
is the most striking, that a very valuable book may be written by 
a very silly man. The biographer of Rienzi appears more like the 
historian of Rienzi’s clothes, so minute is he on all details of their 
color and quality, so silent is he upon everything that could 
throw light upon the motives of their wearer. In fact, granting 
the writer every desire to be impartial, he is too foolish to be so. 

» See, for a specimen of the singular blunders of the Frenchman’s work. 
Appendix II. 

VOL. II. — 22 


338 


APPENDIX. 


It requires some cleverness to judge accurately of a very clever 
man in very difficult circumstances ; and the worthy biographer is 
utterly incapable of giving us any clew to the actions of Rienzi, — 
utterly unable to explain the conduct of the man by the circum- 
stances of the time. The weakness of his vision causes him, 
therefore, often to squint. We must add to his want of wisdom a 
want of truth, which the Herodotus-like simplicity of his style 
frequently conceals. He describes things which had no witness as 
precisely and, distinctly as those which he himself had seen. For 
instance, before the death of Rienzi, in those awful moments when 
the Senator was alone, unheard, unseen, he coolly informs us of 
each motion and each thought of Rienzi’s, with as much detail as 
if Rienzi had returned from the grave to assist his narration. These 
obvious inventions have been adopted by Gibbon and others with 
more good faith than the laws of evidence would warrant. Still, 
however, to a patient and cautious reader the biography may furnish 
a much better notion of Rienzi’s character, than we can glean from 
the historians who have borrowed from it piecemeal. Such a reader 
will discard all the writer’s reasonings, will think little of his praise 
or blame, and regard only the facts he narrates, judging them true 
or doubtful, according as the writer had the opportunities of being 
himself the observer. Thus examining, the reader will find evidence 
sufficient of Rienzi’s genius and Rienzi’s failings. Carefully dis- 
tinguishing between the period of his power as Tribune, and that 
of his power as Senator, he will find the Tribune vain, haughty, 
fond of display ; but despite the reasonings of the biographer, he 
will not recognize those faults in the Senator. On the other hand, 
he will notice the difference between youth aud maturity, hope 
and experience ; he will notice in the Tribune vast ambition, great 
schemes, enterprising activity, — which sober into less gorgeous and 
more quiet colors in the portrait of the Senator. He will find that 
in neither instance did Rienzi fall from his own faults, — he will find 
that the vulgar moral of ambition, blasted by its own excesses, is 
not the true moral of the Roman’s life ; he will find that, both in 
his abdication as Tribune and his death as Senator, Rienzi fell 
from the vices of the People. The Tribune was a victim to ignorant 
cowardice ; the Senator, a victim to ferocious avarice. It is this 
which modern historians have failed to represent. Gibbon records 
rightly, that the Count of Minorbino entered Rome with one 
hundred and fifty soldiers, and barricadoed the quarter of the 
Colonna ; that the bell of the Capitol sounded ; that Rienzi ad* 


APPENDIX. 


339 


dressed the People; that they were silent and inactive, and that 
Rieuzi then abdicated the government. But for this he calls Rienzi 
“ pusillanimous.” Is not that epithet to be applied to the People ? 
Rienzi invoked them to move against the Robber, — the People 
refused to obey. Rienzi wished to fight, — the People refused to stir. 
It was not the cause of Rieuzi alone which demanded their exertions, 
it was the cause of the People, — theirs, not his, the shame, if one 
hundred and fifty foreign soldiers mastered Rome, overthrew their 
liberties, and restored their tyrants ! Whatever Rienzi’s sins, 
W'hatever his unpopularity, their freedom, their laws, their republic 
were at stake ; and these they surrendered to one hundred and fifty 
hirelings. This is the fact that damns them ! But Rienzi was not 
unpopular when he addressed and conjured them ; they found no 
fault with him. “ The sighs and the groans of the people,” says 
Sismondi, justly, “ replied to his,” — they could weep, but they 
w’ould not fight. This strange apathy the modern historians have 
not accounted for, yet the principal cause was obvious, — Rienzi was 
excommunicated ! i In stating the fact, these writers have seemed 

1 And this curse I apprehend to have been the more effective in the in- 
stance of Rienzi, from a fact that it would be interesting and easy to 
establish, — viz. that he owed his rise as much to religious as to civil causes. 
He aimed evidently to be a religious reformer. All his devices, ceremonies, 
and watchwords were of a religious character. The monks took part with 
his enterprise, and joined in the revolution. His letters are full of mystical 
fanaticism. His references to ancient heroes of Rome are always mingled 
with invocations to her Christian Saints. The Bible, at that time little 
read by the public civilians of Italy, is constantly in his hands, and his 
addresses studded with texts. His very garments were adorned with sacred 
and mysterions emblems. No doubt, the ceiemony of his knighthood, 
which Gibbon ridicules as an act of mere vanity, was but another of his 
religious extravagances ; for he peculiarly dedicated his knighthood to the 
service of the Santo Spirito ; and his bathing in the vase of Constantine was 
quite of a piece, not with the vanity of the Tribune, but with the extrava- 
gance of the fanatic. In fact, they tried hard to prove him a heretic ; but 
he escaped a charge under the mild Innocent, which a century or two 
before, or a century or two afterwards, would have sufficed to have sent a 
dozen Rienzis to the stake. I have dwelt the more upon this point, be- 
cause, if it be shown that religious causes operated with those of liberty, 
we throw a new light upon the whole of that most extraordinary revolution, 
and its suddenness is infinitely less striking. The deep impression Rienzi 
produced upon that populace was thus stamped with the spirit of the reli- 
gious enthusiast more than that of the classical demagogue. And, as in 
the time of Cromwell, the desire for temporal liberty was warmed and 
colored by the presence of a holier and more spiritual fervor: “The Good 


340 


APPENDIX. 


to think that excommunication in Rome in the fourteenth century 
produced no effect ! — the effect it did produce I have endeavored 
in these pages to convey. 

The causes of the second fall and final murder of Rienzi are 
equally misstated by modern narrators. It was from no fault of 
his, — no injustice, no cruelty, no extravagance ; it was not from the 
execution of Montreal, nor that of Pandulfo di Guido, — it was from 
a gahelle on wine and salt, that he fell. To preserve Rome from the 
tyrants it was necessary to maintain an armed force ; to pay the 
force a tax was necessary ; the tax was imposed, — and the multitude 
joined with the tyrants, and their cry was, “ Perish the traitor who 
has made the gahelle ! ” This was their only charge, — this the only 
crime that their passions and their fury could cite against him. 

The faults of Rienzi are sufficiently visible, and I have not un- 
sparingly shown them : but we must judge men, not according as 
they approach perfection, but according as their good or bad 
qualities preponderate, their talents or their weaknesses, the 
benefits they effected, the evil they wrought. For a man who rose 
to so great a power, Rienzi’s faults were singularly few, — crimes he 
committed none. He is almost the only man who ever rose from 
the rank of a citizen to a power equal to that of monarchs without 
a single act of violence or treachery. When in power, he was 
vain, ostentatious, and imprudent, — always an enthusiast, often 
a fanatic ; but his very faults had greatness of soul, and his very 
fanaticism at once supported his enthusiastic daring, and proved 
his earnest honesty. It is evident that no heinous charge could 
be brought against him even by his enemies, for all the accusa- 
tions to which he was subjected, when excommunicated, exiled, 
fallen, were for two offences, which Petrarch rightly deemed the 
proofs of his virtue and his glory : first, for declaring Rome to be 
free ; secondly, for pretending that the Romans had a right of 
choice in the election of the Roman emperor.^ Stern, just, and 
inflexible as he was when Tribune, his fault was never that of 
wanton cruelty. The accusation against him, made by the gentle 
Petrarch, indeed, was that he was not determined enough, — that 
he did not consummate the revolution by exterminating the patri- 
cian-tyrants. When Senator, he was, without sufficient ground, 
accused of avarice in the otherwise just and necessary execution 

Estate ” (Buono State) of Rienzi reminds us a little of the Good Cause of 
General Cromwell. 

1 The charge of heresy was dropped. 


APPENDIX. 


341 


of Montreal.! It was natural enough that his enemies and the 
vulgar should suppose that he executed a creditor to get rid of a 
debt ; but it was inexcusable in later and wiser and fairer writers 
to repeat so great a calumny, without at least adding the obvious 
suggestion, that the avarice of Rienzi could have been much better 
gratified by sparing than by destroying the life of one of the rich- 
est subjects in Europe. Montreal, we may be quite sure, would 
have purchased his life at an immeasurably higher price than the 
paltry sum lent to Rienzi by his brothers. And this is not a 
probable hypothesis, but a certain fact ; for we are expressly told 
that Montreal, “ knowing that the Tribune was in want of money, 
offered Rienzi that if he would let him go, he, Montreal, would 
furnish him not only with twenty thousand florins (four times the 
amount of Rienzi’s debt to him), but with as many soldiers and 
as much money as he pleased.” This offer Rienzi did not attend 
to. Would he have rejected it had avarice been his motive ? And 
what culpable injustice to mention the vague calumny without 
citing the practical contradiction ! When Gibbon tells us, also, 
that “ the viost virtuous citizen of Rome,” meaning Pandulfo, or 
Pandolficcio di Guido,^ was sacrificed to his jealousy, he a little 
exaggerates the expression bestowed upon Pandulfo, which is that 
of “ virtuoso assai ; ” and that expression, too, used by a man who 
styles the robber Montreal “ excellente uomo, — di quale fama suono 
per tutta la Italia di virtude ” 3 (so good a moral critic was the 
writer ! ) — but he also altogether waives all mention of the proba- 
bilities that are sufficiently apparent, of the scheming of Pandulfo 
to supplant Rienzi, and to obtain the “ Signoria del Popolo.” Still, 
however, if the death of Pandulfo may be considered a blot on the 
memory of Rienzi, it does not appear that it was this which led to 
his own fate. The cry of the mob surrounding his palace was not, 

1 Gibbon, in mentioning the execution of Montreal, omits to state that 
Montreal was more than suspected of conspiracy and treason to restore 
the Colonna. Matthew Villani records it as a common belief that such 
truly was the offence of the Provenfal. The biographer of Rienzi gives 
additional evidence of the fact. Gibbon’s knowledge of this time was 
superficial. As one instance of this, he strangely enough represents Mon- 
treal as the head of the first Free Company that desolated Italy : he took that 
error from the P^re du Cerceau. 

2 Matthew Villani speaks of him as a wise and good citizen, of great repute 
among the people ; and this, it seems, he really was. 

s “An excellent man, whose fame for valor resounded throughout all 
Italy.” 


342 


APPENDIX. 


“ Perish him who executed Pandulfo,” it was — and this again and 
again must be carefully noted — it was nothing more nor less than, 
“ Perish him umo has made the gabelle ! ” 

Gibbon sneers at the military skill and courage of Rienzi. Por 
this sneer there is no cause. His first attempts, his first rise, at- 
tested sufficiently his daring and brave spirit ; in every danger he 
was present, — never shrinking from a foe so long as he was sup- 
ported by the people. He distinguished himself at Viterbo when 
in the camp of Albornoz, in several feats of arms,i amj end was 
that of a hero. So much for his courage ; as to his military skill 
it would be excusable enough if Rienzi — the eloquent and gifted 
student, called from the closet and the rostrum to assume the 
command of an army — should have been deficient m the art of war • 
yet, somehow or other, upon the whole his arms prospered. He 
defeated the chivalry of Rome at her gates ; and if he did not 
after his victory march to Marino, for which his biographer and 
Gibbon blame him, the reason is sufficiently clear, — “ Volea pecunia 
per soldati,” — he ivanted money for the soldiers ! On his return, as 
Senator, it must be remembered that he had to besiege Palestrina, 
which was considered even by the ancient Romans almost impreg- 
nable by position ; but during the few weeks he was in power, 
Palestrina yielded, all his open enemies were defeated, the tyrants 
expelled, Rome free ; and this without support from any party, 
papal or popular, or, as Gibbon well expresses it, “ suspected by 
the people, — abandoned by the prince.” 

On regarding what Rienzi did, we must look to his means, to the 
difficulties that surrounded him, to the scantiness of his resources. 
We see a man without rank, wealth, or friends, raising himself to 
the head of a popular government in the metropolis of the Church, 

— in the City of the Empire. We see him reject any title save that 
of a popular magistrate, establish at one stroke a free constitution, 

— a new code of law. We see him first expel, then subdue, the 
fiercest aristocracy in Europe, — conquer the most stubborn banditti ; 
rule impartially the most turbulent people, embruted by the vio- 
lence, and sunk in the corruption of centuries. We see him restore 
trade, establish order, create civilization as by a miracle, receive 
from crowned heads homage and congratulation, outwit, conciliate, 
or awe the wiliest priesthood of the Papal diplomacy, and raise 

^ Vita di Cola di Rienzi, lib. ii. cap. 14. 

* In this the anonymous writer compares him gravely to Hannibal, who 
knew how to conquer, but not how to use his conquest 


APPENDIX. 


343 


his native city at once to sudden yet acknowledged eminence over 
every other state, — its superior in arts, wealth, and civilization ; 
we ask what errors w^e are to weigh in the opposite balance, and we 
find an unnecessary ostentation, a fanatical extravagance, and a 
certain insolent sternness. But what are such offences, — what the 
splendor of a banquet, or the ceremony of knighthood, or a few 
arrogant words, compared with the vices of almost every prince 
who was his contemporary 7 This is the way to judge character : 
we must compare men with men, and not with ideals of what men 
should be. We look to the amazing benefits Rienzi conferred upon 
his country. We ask his means, and see but his own abilities. His 
treasury becomes impoverished, his enemies revolt ; the Church 
takes advantage of his weakness, he is excommunicated ; the sol- 
diers refuse to fight, the People refuse to assist ; the barons ravage 
the country, — the ways are closed, the provisions are cut off from 
Rome.i A handful of banditti enter the city ; Rienzi proposes to 
resist them; the People desert, — he abdicates. Rapine, famine, 
massacre, ensue ; they who deserted regret, repent ; yet he is still 
unassisted, alone, — now an exile, now a prisoner, his own genius 
saves him from every peril, and restores him to greatness. He 
returns ; the pope’s legate refuses him arms, the People refuse him 
money. He re-establishes law and order, expels the tyrants, re- 
nounces his former faults ; is prudent, wary, provident ; reigns a 

* “ Allora le strade furo chiuse, li massari de la terre non portavano 
grano, ogni die nasceva nuovo rumore.” — Vita di Cola di Rienzi, lib. i. cap. 37. 

2 This, the second period of his power, has been represented by Gibbon 
and others as that of his principal faults, and he is evidently at this time 
no favorite with his contemporaneous biographer ; but looking to what he 
did, we find amazing dexterity, prudence, and energy in the most difficult 
crisis, and none of his earlier faults. It is true that he does not show the 
same brilliant extravagance which, I suspect, dazzled his contemporaries 
more than his sounder qualities : but we find that in a few weeks he had 
conquered all his powerful enemies ; that his eloquence was as great as ever, 
— his promptitude greater, his diligence indefatigable, his foresight un- 
slumbering. “He alone,” says the biographer, “carried on the affairs of 
Rome, but his officials were slothful and cold.” This, too, tortured by a 
painful disease ; already — though yet young — broken and infirm. The only 
charges against him, as Senator, were the deaths of Montreal and Pandulfo 
di Guido, the imposition of the gabelle, and the renunciation of his former 
habits of rigid abstinence, for indulgence in wine and feasting. Of the first 
charges, the reader has already been enabled to form a judgment. To the 
last, alas ! the reader must extend indulgence, and for it he may find excuse. 
We must compassionate even more than condemn the man to whom excite- 
ment has become nature, and who resorts to the physical stimulus or the 


344 


APPENDIX. 


few weeks, — taxes the People, in support of the People, and is torn 
to pieces ! One day of the rule that followed is sufficient to vindi- 
cate his reign and avenge his memory ; and for centuries afterward, 
whenever that wretched and degenerate populace dreamed of glory 
or sighed for justice, they recalled the bright vision of their own 
victim, and deplored the fate of Cola di Eienzi. That he was not a 
tyrant is clear in this, — when he was dead, he was bitterly regretted. 
The People never regret a tyrant ! From the unpopularity that 
springs from other faults there is often a reaction ; but there is no 
reaction in the populace towards their betrayer or oppressor. A 
thousand biographies cannot decide upon the faults or merits of a 
ruler like the one fact, whether he is beloved or hated ten years 
after he is dead. But if the ruler has been murdered by the People, 
and is then repented by them, their repentance is his acquittal. 

I have said that the moral of the Tribune’s life and of this fiction 
is not the stale and unprofitable moral that warns the ambition of an 
individual ; more vast, more solemn, and more useful, it addresses 
itself to nations. If I judge not erringly, it proclaims that, to be 
great and free, a People must trust not to individuals, but them- 
selves ; that there is no sudden leap from servitude to liberty ; that 
it is to institutions, not to men, that they must look for reforms 
that last beyond the hour ; that their own passions are the real 
despots they should subdue, their own reason the true regenerator 
of abases. With a calm and a noble people, the individual ambition 
of a citizen can never effect evil : to be impatient of chains is not 
to be worthy of freedom, — to murder a magistrate is not to ame- 
liorate the laws.i The People write their own condemnation when- 
ever they use characters of blood ; and theirs alone the madness 
and the crime, if they crown a tyrant or butcher a victim. 

momentary Lethe, when the mental exhilarations of hope, youth, and glory 
begin to desert him. His alleged intemperance, however, which the Romans 
(a peculiarly sober people) might perhaps exaggerate, and for which he gave 
the excuse of a thirst produced by disease contracted in the dungeon of 
Avignon, evidently and confessedly did not in the least diminish his atten- 
tion to business, which, according to his biographer, was at that time greater 
than ever. 

J Rienzi was murdered because the Romans had been in the habit of 
murdering whenever they were displeased. They had, very shortly before, 
stoned one magistrate, and torn to pieces another. By the same causes 
and the same career, a people may be made to resemble the bravo whose 
hand wanders to his knife at the smallest affront; and if to-day he poniards 
the enemy who assaults him, to-morrow he strikes the friend who would 
restrain. 


APPENDIX. 


345 


11 . 

A WORD UPON THE WORK BY PERE DU CERCEAU AND PERB 
BRUMOY, ENTITLED “CONJURATION DE NICOLAS GABRINI, DIT 
DE RIENZI, TYRAN DE ROME.” 

Shortly after the Romance of “ Rieuzi ” first appeared, a transla- 
tion of the biography compiled by Cerceau and Brumoy was pub- 
lished by Mr. Whittaker. The translator, in a short and courteous 
advertisement, observes, “ That it has always been considered as a 
work of authority ; and even Gibbon appears to have relied on it 
without further research ; ” ^ . that, “ as a record of facts, there- 
fore, the work will, it is presumed, be acceptable to the public.” 
The translator has fulfilled his duty with accuracy, elegance, and 
spirit ; and he must forgive me, if, in justice to History and Rienzi, 
I point out a very few from amongst a great many reasons, why the 
joint labor of the two worthy Jesuits cannot be considered either 
a work of authority or a record of facts. The translator observes, 
in his preface, “ that the general outline [of Du Cerceau 's work] was 
probably furnished by an Italian life written by a contemporary of 
Rienzi.” The fact, however, is, that Du Cerceau’s book is little 
more than a wretched paraphrase of that very Italian life mentioned 
by the translator, — full of blunders, from ignorance of the peculiar 
and antiquated dialect in which the original is written, and of 
assumptions by the Jesuit himself, which rest upon no authority 
whatever. I will first show, in support of this assertion, what the 
Italians themselves think of the work of Fathers Brumoy and Du 
Cerceau. The Signor Zefirino Re, who has proved himself singu- 
larly and minutely acquainted with the history of that time, and 
whose notes to the “ Life of Rienzi ” are characterized by acknowl- 
edged acuteness and research, thus describes the manner in which 
the two Jesuits compounded this valuable “ record of facts ” : — 

“ Father du Cerceau for his work made use of a French transla- 
tion of the life by the Italian contemporary, printed in Bracciano, 
1624 , executed by Father Sanadon, another Jesuit, from whom he 
received the MS. This proves that Du Cerceau knew little of our 
‘volgar lingua’ of the fourteenth century. But the errors into 
which he has run show that even that little was unknown to his 


* Here, however, he does injustice to Gibbon. 


346 


APPENDIX. 


guide, and still less to Father Brumoy (however learned and reputed 
the latter might be in French literature), who, after the death of 
Du Cerceau, supplied the deficiencies in the first pages of the 
author’s MS,, which were, I know not how, lost ; and in this part 
are found the more striking errors in the work, which shall be 
noticed in the proper place ; in the mean time one specimen will 
suffice. In the third chapter, book i.. Cola, addressing the Romans, 
says, ‘ Che lo giubileo si approssima, che se la gente, la quale verra 
al giubileo, li trova sproveduti di annona, le pietre (per metatesi 
sta scritto le preite) ne porteranno da Roma per rabbia di fame, e 
le pietre non basteranno a tanta moltitudine,’ — thus rendered in 
the French, ‘ Le jubile approche, et vous n’avez ni provisions ni 
vivres; les etrangers . , , trouveront votre ville deniie de tout, 
Ne comptez point sur les secours des gens d’^Jglise ; ils sortiront 
de la ville, s’ils n’y trouvent de quoi subsister : et d’ailleurs pour- 
roient-ils suffire a la multitude iimombrable, que se trouvera dans 
VOS murs ? ’ ” i “ Buon Dio ! ” exclaims the learned Zefirino, “ Buon 
Dio ! le pietre prese per tanta gente di chiesa ! ” ^ 

Another blunder, little less extraordinary, occurs in chapter vi., 
in which the ordinances of Rienzi’s Buono Stato are recited. 

It is set forth as the third ordinance : “ Che nulla casa di Roma 

sia data per terra per alcuna cagione, ma vada in commune ; ” 
which simply means that the liouses of delinquents should in no 
instance be razed, but added to the community or confiscated ; 
this law being intended partly to meet the barbarous violences with 
which the excesses and quarrels of the barons had half dismantled 
Rome, and principally to repeal some old penal laws by which the 
houses of a certain class of offenders might be destroyed ; but the 
French translator construes it, “ Que nulle niaison de Rome ne 
saroit donn€e en propre, pour quelque raison que ce pfit eti*e ; mais 
que les revenus en appartiendroient au public ! ” ^ 

But enough of the blunders arising from ignorance. I must now 
be permitted to set before the reader a few of the graver offences 
of wilful assumption and preposterous invention. 

1 The English translator could not fail to adopt the Frenchman’s ludicrous 
mistake. 

* See Preface to Zefirino Re’s edition of the Life of Rienzi, p. 9, note on 
Du Cerceau. 

* The English translator makes this law unintelligible: “That no family 
of Rome shall appropriate to their own use what they think fit, but that the 
revenues shall appertain to the public ’’ 1 ! 1 — The revenues of what ? 


APPENDIX. 


347 


When Rienzi condemned some of the barons to death, the Pere 
thus writes (I take the recent translation published by Mr. Whit- 
taker) : — 

“ The next day the Tribune, resolving more than ever to rid 
himself of his prisoners, ordered tapestries of two colors, red and 
white, to be laid over the place whereon he held his councils, and 
which he had made choice of to be the theatre of this bloody tra- 
gedy, as the extraordinary tapestry seemed to declare. He after- 
wards sent a cordelier to every one of the prisoners to administer 
the sacraments, and then ordered the Capitol bell to be tolled. At 
that fatal sound, and the sight of the confessors, the lords no longer 
doubted of sentence of death being passed upon them. They all 
confessed except the old Colonna, and many received the commu- 
nion. In the mean while the people, naturally prompt to attend, 
when their first impetuosity had time to calm, could not without pity 
behold the dismal preparations which were making. The sight of the 
bloody color in the tapestry shocked them. On this first impression 
they joined in opinion in relation to so many illustrious heads now 
going to be sacrificed, and lamented more their unhappy catas- 
trophe, as no crime had been proved upon them to render them 
worthy of such barbarous treatment. Above all, the unfortunate 
Stephen Colonna, whose birth, age, and affable behavior commanded 
respect, excited a particular compassion. An universal silence and 
sorrow reigned among them. Those who were nearest Rienzi dis- 
covered an alteration. They took the opportunity of imploring his 
mercy towards the prisoners in terms the most affecting and 
moving.” 

Will it be believed that in the original from which the P^re du 
Cerceau borrows, or rather imagines, this touching recital, there is 
not a single syllable about the pity of the People, nor their shock at the 
bloody colors of the tapestry, nor their particular compassion for 
the unfortunate Stephen Colonna ? — in fine, the People are not even 
mentioned at all. All that is said is, “ Some Roman citizens 
(alcuni cittadini Romani), considering the judgment Rienzi was 
about to make, interposed with soft and caressing words, and at 
last changed the opinion of the Tribune ; ” all the rest is the pure 
fiction of the ingenious Frenchman ! Again, Du Cerceau, describ- 
ing the appearance of the barons at this fatal moment, says : “ Not- 
withstanding the grief and despair visible in their countenances 
they showed a noble indignation generally attendant on innocence in 
the hour of death.*’ What says the authority from which alone, 


348 


APPENDIX. 


except his own, the good father could take his account ? Why, not 
a word about this noble indignation, or this parade of innocence ! 
The original says simply, that “ the barons were so frozen with terror 
that they were unable to speak ” (diventaso si gelati che non poteano 
favellare); “that the greater part humbled themselves” (e prese 
penitenza e comunione) ; that when Rienzi addressed them, “a// 
the barons [come dannati] stood in sadness.” ^ Du Cerceau then 
proceeds to state that “ although he [Rienzi] was grieved at heart 
to behold his victims snatched from him, he endeavored to make 
a merit of it in the eyes of the people.” There is not a word of this 
in the original ! 

So, when Rienzi, on a later occasion, placed the prefect, John di 
Vico, in prison, this Jesuit says ; “ To put a gloss upon this action 
before the eyes of the people, Rienzi gave out that the governor, 
John di Vico, keeping a correspondence with the conspirators, came 
with no other view than to betray the Romans.” And if this 
scribbler, who pretends to have consulted the Vatican MSS., had 
looked at the most ordinary authorities, he would have seen that 
John di Vico did come with that view. (See, for Di Vico’s secret 
correspondence with the barons. La Cron. Bologn., p. 406 ; and La 
Cron. Est., p. 444.) 

Again, in the battle between the barons and the Romans at the 
gates, Du Cerceau thus describes the conduct of the Tribune : 
“ The Tribune, amidst his troops, knew so little of what had passed 
that seeing at a distance one of his standards fall, he looked upon 
all as lost, and casting up his eyes to heaven, full of despair, cried 
out, ‘ O God, will you then forsake me ? ’ But no sooner was he 
informed of the entire defeat of his enemies, than his dread and 
cowardice even turned to boldness and arrogance.” 

Now in the original all that is said of this is, “ That it is true 
that the standard of the Tribune fell ; the Tribune, astonished [or 
if you please, dismayed, sbigottio'\ stood with his eyes raised to 
heaven, and could find no other words than, ‘ O God, hast thou 
betrayed me 1 ’” This evinced, perhaps, alarm or consternation at 
the fall of his standard, — a consternation natural, not to a coward, 
but a fanatic, at such an event. But not a word is said about 
Rienzi’s cowardice in the action itself ; it is not stated when the 
accident happened, — nothing bears out the implication that the Tri- 
bune was remote from the contest, and knew little of what passed. 
And if this ignorant Frenchman had consulted any other contempo^ 

1 See Vita di Cola dl Rienzi, 11b. i. cap. 29. 


APPENDIX. 


349 




raneous historian whatever, he would have found it asserted by them 
all, that the fight was conducted with great valor, both by the 
Roman populace and their leader on the one side, and the barons 
on the other. — G. Vill., lib. xii. cap. 105; Cron. Sen., tom. xv. ; 
Murat, p. 119 ; Cron. Est., p. 444. Yet Gibbon rests his own sar- 
casm on the Tribune’s courage solely on the baseless exaggeration 
of this Pere du Cerceau. 

So little,v indeed, did this French pretender know of the history 
of the time and place he treats of, that he imagines the Stephen 
Colonna who was killed in the battle above mentioned was the old 
Stephen Colonna, and is very pathetic about his “ venerable appear- 
ance,” etc. This error, with regard to a man so eminent as Stephen 
Colonna the elder, is inexcusable ; for had the priest turned over 
the other pages of the very collection in which he found the biogra- 
phy he deforms, he would have learned that old Stephen Colonna 
was alive some time after that battle. — ( Cron. Sen. Murat., tom. 
XV. p. 121.) 

Again, just before Rienzi’s expulsion from the office of Tribune, 
Du Cerceau, translating in his headlong way the old biographer’s 
account of the causes of Rienzi’s loss of popularity, says . “ He shut 
himself up in his palace, and his presence was known only by the 
rigorous punishment which he caused his agents to inflict upon the 
innocent.” Not a word of this in the original ! 

Again, after the expulsion, Du Cerceau says that the barons 
seized upon the “ immense riches ” he had amassed, — the words in 
the original are, “grandi ornamenti,” which are very different 
things from immense riches. But the most remarkable sins of 
commission are in this person’s account of the second rise and fall 
of Rienzi under the title of Senator. Of this I shall give but one 
instance : — 

“The Senator, who perceived it, became only the more cruel. 
His jealousies produced only fresh murders. In the continual 
dread he was in that the general discontent would terminate in 
some secret attempt upon his person, he determined to intimidate 
the most enterprising, by sacrificing sometimes one, sometimes 
another, and chiefly those whose riches rendered them the more 
guilty in his eyes. Numbers were sent every day to the Capitol 
prison. Happy were those who could get off with the confiscation 
of their estates.” 

Of these grave charges there is not a syllable in the original ! And 
so much for the work of Pere Cerceau and Pere Brumoy, by virtue 







350 


APPENDIX. 


of which historians have written of the life and times of Rienzi, 
and upon the figments of which the most remarkable man in an 
age crowded with great characters is judged by the general reader ! 

I must be pardoned for this criticism, which might not have been 
necessary, had not the work to which it relates, in the English 
translation quoted from (a translation that has no faults but those 
of the French original), been actually received as an historical and 
indisputable authority, and opposed with a triumphant air to some 
passages in my own narrative which were literally taken from the 
authentic records of the time. 


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